Reclamation
by Gelana
Summary: Post Series Finale- Odo is in the Gamma Quadrant helping heal worlds wounded by the Founders, but he cannot stop thinking about the woman he left behind.
1. Part One: Chapter 1

_Part One_

_My name is Odo'ital. I am nothing. I am everything. I am the clouds in the sky, the birds that sweep the air. I am the rock and firmament of the earth, the roiling ocean, a pebble, a raindrop._

_I am a Changeling. Malleable. Master of my being on a quantum level. I do not eat or drink. I do not shed hair or skin or eliminate. In my true form I am amber liquid; a silicon based life form, or so state the carbon based life forms' textbooks. Resembling thick gelatinous goo. They stored me in beakers and buckets when they first found me, 65 years ago. (Bajoran solar years, mind you, as that is where I have spent the better part of my life thus far.) I fashioned myself a humanoid form when I was able, and weary of being stubborn, based on the form of the scientist in charge of studying me, and while I am neither male nor female, and in ways both, I created myself a man, in his image. Timeless, yet still in my infancy, I will outlive him and generations of solids; a thought which troubles me. For it was with the solids, with the Bajorans, that I fell in love with a woman. _

_Before me no Changeling had ever harmed another. Before me no Changeling had ever loved. None that exist within the Great Link, anyway, where all become one. I am one of one hundred infants cast out to the corners of the universe over the years, to grow and learn about life in other vastly different places. It is how the Link explores, gauges the mettle and manner of races and sectors across the Galaxy; for when we were hurled into the vastness of space we were helpless, at the mercy of those who discovered us. Swallowed by a unique stellar phenomenon, a stable wormhole, home to a non-linear non-corporeal race of beings, I was spewed furthest away, like the others, unformed, and only vaguely self aware. _

_I was the first to return home. And I did so, far too soon. They cannot understand what I feel, how I feel it. Nor can I; I only know that I do. This love burns like a slow searing plasma fire. I chose her over my people so many times. Finally, I returned to them, to heal and help them, but also to set her free to live a life I could not give her. A life with family, children, and stability. I did not plan to ache for her. It disturbed the Link - my consciousness separated out from the collective consciousness, keening for an alien so unlike myself I could not even communicate with her in the most basic and necessary ways of my people. She, who is ever fixed, set in her dimensions, proportions, shape. She varies to degrees, is exquisitely mobile, but her bones will always be bones, and her teeth and hair will always be teeth and hair, until she passes out of her body and what's left ages into the soil of Bajor. Even then, more so then, she will be fixed. She is an anchor, an albatross around my neck – a human term so very strange to me when I first encountered it in novels of sea faring travelers from ancient Earth. A burden and a boon. It seems that now I have left her, I feel my connection to her, my need for her even more keenly. My journey is taking me where it will, and everyday I feel how it takes me further from her. So much time has passed; I don't dare check on her. I have enough connections, that sometimes news filtered through on its own, but it is hearsay and inconclusive. It is enough to know that she is still in command of DS9, that she keeps it running with a firm but fair hand and has gained a name for her growing diplomatic skills. She had been a public figure on her world for years now, but it pleases me to hear of her gaining political and popular approval. I always wondered if she would transition over into politics. She had a natural knack for it. A fearlessness I'd always admired. She was always more than most people expected, and wasn't shy of calling people to responsibility. After the first two years I tried to avoid news. In part it was too distracting to wonder, to reminisce; it unsettled me and stole my focus. If she has moved on, part of me will die. And if she hasn't, I will blame myself, and ache for her all the more. So, I try to frame our love, like you would a treasured holo-image. To remember it as it was with joy and fondness. But more often these days I find myself mourning its loss, passing through the life I have created for myself efficiently, but like a ghost – only half there. I even found myself talking of her one day to one of my friends here. A woman who reminds me a little of Nerys, in her convictions and energy. She asked me who I pined for. Asked me flatly, but with kindness. _

"Is it that obvious?" he finally asked, after struggling for words for a moment.

She nodded, her dark feathers rustling softly against paler scales and porcelain skin, "Well, perhaps only to those who have felt it themselves. I see it in you sometimes when you are by yourself, or looking at the mountains. A longing settles over your face. Did she pass?"

He shook his head. "No. She lives in the Alpha quadrant, on the other side of the wormhole."

"You love her, but are not with her?"

He sighed deeply, an affectation become habitual response, "No. I had to leave. To heal my people from a sickness that afflicted them. To show them how badly they had wronged you. To be here, do this."

He paused. "She wanted me to come back. But I knew that this work would last longer than her lifetime, and I couldn't bear the thought of her giving up her entire life for me. Besides, she loves her planet, her people, is a leader amongst them, important to them. She is needed there."

"Why do you not visit her, then? You want to see her."

"I thought about it at first. But I know her. She would wait for me, let the life she deserves slide past. She needs to live her life, and not be tied down to me."

"Hmmm." Rahnu gave him a shadowed look, tapped a claw on the panel at which they say, "I find that sometimes we are tied down whether we wish to be or not, and to pull at the line only tires us, until we lose sight of what is important."

"Which means?"

"Only that perhaps in denying your connection, you weaken both yourself and your beloved. Perhaps fighting it is draining your energy. And for what? To what end? In my experience, what we want for our loved ones rarely coincides with what they need for themselves. But yours isn't my life to meddle with. I cannot hide you from the wind; you must build your own shelter. I will only say that some things are not as binary as we make them out to be. Life is not merely gusting storm or clear stillness; it is a thousand variations in between."

In this corner of Sehlas Prime everything boiled down to the wind. The wind brought life and death here with equal fervor. They watched it together, the wind churning storm clouds in the three hundred kilometer distance, months later, from the Observatory of the primary arch in the Oslin Province's Harbor Way Station. He had called her world, Sehlas Prime, home for the last Sehlaian solar year and a half.

They spoke in low tones, for a handful of newly trained researchers were collecting astrometric and astronomical data, as well as meteorological and barometric readings, from a variety of instrument panels nearby. Rahnu Ehnar was the elected official who oversaw function and operation of the Arches, Sehlas Prime's eighth largest planetary and interplanetary docking port. Her jurisdiction fell over a territory that was roughly a third of the habitable land mass of the globe, but bore less than half the inhabitants of the other two thirds combined. This region had been the most difficult to coordinate treatment due to the severity of weather, sheer size of it, and how the pockets of nomadic herders, gatherers, merchants and craftspeople tended to be erratic in their settlements and movement. All came to the Arches way station for food, shelter, and medical care several times per year, and slowly he had been healing the last of the populace. They were planning another excursion to the Ranglin Plateau and then the Aching Mountains, the north eastern side, where many sheltered the storm months in caves. Rumor had it that several large encampments were set up there.

"We will travel soon," Rahnu said. "With the team of representatives and scientists from the Way Station and enough provisions and medicines, we will be alright if this window between storms isn't long enough." She fluttered her fingers over the consol, and tapped the image of roiling cloud cover that was the computational simulation of the region' weather for the next month. "See, we may not make this window, here, which will trap us on the mountains for possibly up to two weeks during what will likely be a hard howl." She dialed up the map again and ran her finger along the spine of the mountains. "Transport can take up as far as this ridge, beyond that landing is tricky. We will have to carry supplies in from there. We'll need several pack animals; I have at least one geologist who is bonded with a vehntra. Several guides who are also vehntra keepers have offered their services. I still need to find at least a few more. Sehka cats are hungry and aggressive this time of year; the females are whelping." She continued on about packing supplies in, but his attention was lost when in the far corner of the room he heard her name. _The_ name. _Kira Nerys_. Someone was saying it in conjunction with the Thalid'ieean vessel that was waiting for a break in the wind, just outside the planetary atmosphere. It was requesting docking privileges and even though he knew what he just heard, he could not believe it.

Rahnu trailed off when the Changeling stood and walked across the room. She followed him, with a look of mild confusion.

He did not remember crossing the room, only that he was suddenly behind a technician and asking him in a measured voice, "They are carrying whom?"

"Mr. Odo, good. I needed to contact you, Sir. I have a communiqué regarding Colonel Kira Nerys, of Bajor, from an orbiting Thalid'ieean trade freighter. She claims she is a friend of yours. They are reques..."

"Clear them to dock as soon as it is safe to enter the atmosphere," Odo interrupted quietly, staring at the communiqué that illuminated the screen.

The technician, hesitated, glancing at Rahnu, who stood at Odo's shoulder, for authorization to proceed. She nodded, her dark feathers twitching her amusement, "Any friend of Odo's is a friend of this way station. You may use my authorization code; I will accompany both our guests."

"Aye, Delegate. There will be a brief lull in the winds in forty minutes time. I will divert them to landing port forty two. It's fully operational and on the leeward side of the arch."

"Forty two," Odo nodded, and left immediately, with a bemused looking Rahnu at his heels.

"It's her, isn't it?"

He glanced at her over his shoulder. He couldn't speak, could only see Kira's face as he sank into the Link and out of her life, five years ago. He nodded instead. Could barely hold enough solidity to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He forced himself to walk. Forty minutes would not pass any sooner if he ran, or used the lift.

Rahnu followed him, allowing him his silence. It took them over thirty minutes and easily four kilometers of gently spiraling ramps, to reach the waiting area for landing port forty two. Once there, Odo made himself sit in one of the seven stools that lined the western wall. Rahnu had admitted to being taken with his mannerisms, for he himself admitted they were not instinctual, but learned. At times like this, when he was anxious or impatient, or feeling nervous about dealing with a large group of people, she had told him that she noticed them appear without him consciously invoking them. As he tapped and stilled his left foot several times, crossed and uncrossed his arms, sighed, cleared his throat, he caught himself and watched her suppress more than one smile.

"How are you?" She asked after a few minutes.

He shook his head. "I don't know. Elated, terrified. A little of everything."

The docking control contacted them, "Delegate, Mr. Odo, the Thalid'ieean vessel has entered the atmosphere. Its eta is fifteen minutes to Landing Port 42, ten minutes clearing docking protocols."

Odo nodded. Closed his eyes and swallowed the very real feeling lump in his through. She was here. Coming to him. He didn't know how he managed to maintain his sanity during the next half hour. It passed excruciatingly slowly. When the docking doors hissed and unsealed he could only think how she looked half dead. Half dead. It made his insides lurch, how sickly she seemed. Deep hollows under her cheekbones, dark circles under her eyes. She was in some sort of leatherish uniform, that was all buckles and obviously far too big for her. The legs were cuffed and strapped in place, as were the arms, and whole rows of the silvery fasteners pleated the garment at the sides, tightening it enough around her that it stayed in place. The lines of her face were sharp, a little deeper than they had been, and she looked to be barely conscious and holding her place upright.

He was deeply concerned about this woman who he was trying not to think of as his lover. She wasn't anymore. He didn't want to presume anything. He wished briefly, that Rahnu were not there. That he could ask the questions he needed to ask, greet her as he wanted to. Her hair was long, pulled back and seemed matted. It was still starkly red, crimson even, peppered with threads of silver. Though she glanced in his direction briefly as the doors opened, he noticed she kept her gaze trained on Rahnu from that point on. Odo only half heard what was being said. "…Delegate Rahnu Ehnar, from Oslin Province. We welcome you, Colonel Kira Nerys of Bajor. As you must have heard, Odo has blessed us with his presence and is freeing our populace from a deadly Blight visited on our people years ago. Any friend of Odo's is a most welcome and honored guest indeed." She stepped forward and draped her own prayer shawl over the Colonel's leather clad shoulders in welcome.

The nearness of Rahnu and the light touch of the shawl against the dirty skin of her neck seemed to stir Kira. She blinked and looked directly into Rahnu's eyes, as if asking an unspoken question.

"Please excuse my lack of diplomacy and hygiene, Delegate," she croaked after a moment. "My journey has been long, and it would seem that Thalid'ieean cuisine is toxic to the Bajoran digestive system. It has been over 11 days since I have held a meal in my stomach that agreed with me."

"My dear, we shall take excellent care of you. You will find Sehlians are significantly closer in sustenance requirements than our generous trade partners, the Thalid'ieeans. No doubt they meant well. We have had dealings with those of your people who have settled in the Gamma Quadrant, and have found great pleasure in the resultant culinary exchange! Please, allow me to show you guest quarters, and I am sure you will wish to, I believe the term is "catch up" with Mr. Odo."

It concerned him that Kira seemed to need a steadying breath before she could rally a smile and nod, "Thank you."

"Come," Rahnu turned and began to lead the way.

Always the soldier, he thought, as her face hardened and she took a few slow unsteady steps, each one looking as though she were held up by wires that were slowly dragging her forward. He didn't go to her until she stumbled on the fourth step. She would not look at him, even when he slid his arm through the crook of her elbow. But she took tight hold of him with her free hand. Her knuckles paled as bones jutted through thin skin. They both focused momentarily at the point of contact, jarred by the solid flesh of the other.

The light changed as they rounded a curve of the hallway and a huge viewing window opened up onto a sweeping view of the western plateaus that rose up out of the Oslin plains. "The Ranglin Plateaus, and beyond that, the Aching Mountains. My mother's mother homesteaded on the northeastern slopes of one of the foothills between the plateaus and the mountains. It is a barren, but beautiful place." The setting sun in the east washed the whole scene in warm amber, then a pale pink.

The light on the mountains seemed to momentarily pull the Bajoran out of herself into a wide eyed reverence. Rahnu smiled, noting the slightly shorter woman's gaze as it roamed the incandescent swell and jut of mountains. "Some say they are called the Aching Mountains because they are treacherous to pass, but I think it is because the fall of light from the rising and falling sun sets your heart to aching for all that was and all that could be."

"We can come back tomorrow to ache, Delegate." Odo had taken the moments' pause to look as closely at Nerys as he dared, and the exhaustion, filth, and signs of starvation frightened him. He remembered a time when she had chastised him for being all skin and bones when he was trapped in a human body, remembered the exact look of concern on her face. And now he understood how she had felt. "The Colonel needs rest and sustenance, and a comfortable change of clothes, I think."

Proving his concern, Kira did nothing to protest, merely sagged against his arm, allowing herself to be led to quarters. Rahnu began to lead them to a guest wing, but Odo shook his head and silently indicated the hall that led to the commuter belt that adjoined the spiraling ramps this side of the arches. It would take them down the eight levels to his quarters quickly. Most people walked the ramps, but Rahnu had given him free usage of the people moving belt when he first came to the Arches. He had never used the privilege until now. She altered her course accordingly.

The belt spat them out rather close to the suite he had been assigned. The shift from moving belt to stable floor jarred her and she stumbled. He slipped an arm about her waist to steady her. She seemed to sighed into him slightly as they walked the last distance. The doors to his suite opened on a hinge inward into the room, and thankfully there was no lip to navigate over – though years living on a Cardassian station ingrained her feet to lift out of habit, he noticed. He led her to an oddly low, elliptical couch. She sank onto it quietly. Her grip on his arm was so tight he had to gently prize open her fingers. He lowered his face to hers, "Nerys? Nerys, it's all right. I'm going to step out into the hallway for a moment, and then I will be right back."


	2. Part One: Chapter 2

~Kira~

Her name on his tongue drew her eyes to his for the first time. And for the first time since the docking doors opened it was real. He was kneeling in front of her, and then he stood and stepped outside closing the door behind him. She heard the low rumble of his voice play counterpoint to Rahnu Ehnar's melodic hum. The dark feathered, pale skinned woman must have moved off quietly, because when Odo opened the door again, he was alone. Now she couldn't pull her gaze from him. Followed him as he walked to a cabinet, withdrew a cup, and filled it from a pitcher. Only when he held the cup to her, did she realize he had poured her water. Her brain fought to keep up with the signals being sent to it. He wrapped her hand around the rough pottery cup. She lifted it to her lips and sipped it, aware, at least that too much food or water would simply make her wretch again, which was the last thing she wanted. He knelt and then sat on the floor in front of her, leaning lightly against her shins, one hand looped tenderly around her ankle. Closing her eyes, she narrowed her world to the slow sipping of cool clean water, the soft weight of him on her legs, and the impossibly gentle pressure of his hand.

By the time subdued rapping signaled Rahnu's return, Kira's thinking was slightly cleared and her headache had mellowed somewhat. She was relieved when Odo simply took the tray and basket with a woven fabric handle from her at the door, thanked her, and bade her goodnight. It registered with her mind for the first time that this race's legs bent the wrong way at the knee and hip. She also noticed that Odo had maintained his familiar generic humanoid form. She would ask him later, when she could think again. Rahnu was kind, Kira decided, even if she seemed ambitious and her eyes lingered too long on him.

"She brought food and several changes of clothes," Odo murmured when he turned around. "I want you to have a few bites first, maybe of the soup, but then I expect you will want to clean up a little."

Kira looked down at herself with shame and disgust. She'd done the best she could to wipe the traces of vomit from her borrowed uniform, but with limited water and no access to any kind of toileting facilities, evidence of her reactions to the Thalid'ieean food was dried into the weave and buckles. Evidently the Thalid'ieeans had no sweat or oil glands, for they felt no need to bathe, and did not smell worse for it. She couldn't smell herself anymore – her nose had grown accustomed to the sour, stale, acidic scent. For once she was grateful that Changelings didn't have a proper sense of smell. She nodded her assent, and then looked away, more than a little ashamed at the way in which she had come to him. She was not accustomed to appearing weak and wretched, and bore more than a little resentment towards the Founders for her current state. But if it was a test of her resolve, she had surely passed, for she was here, now, with the one dearest in the universe to her standing nearby and looking fiercely concerned.

Moments later another cup with barely more than a few tablespoons of a purplish broth was pressed into her hand. "Sip this. I'll draw you a bath."

The words registered after he had left the room and a smile parted her lips as she drank the soup. She couldn't remember the last time she had taken a hot bath. There were none on the station. Except on the holosuites, which didn't count in the proper order of things. The soup, it finally occurred to her was mild, but exceptionally flavored. Her stomach spasmed shortly thereafter, and it hurt, but she didn't bring anything up. When the discomfort passed she took another small swallow and then another. There were minced pieces of vegetables in it. It felt like manna of the Prophets sliding warmly down her rough throat. The sound of her own swallowing was loud and strange in her ears. Beyond that she could hear the tone of falling water changing as the tub filled. When she finished the small portion he passed her, she began the tedious chore of unbuckling. Confused and dull, her fingers struggled from fastening to fastening. Truly, these were the most ridiculous, cumbersome and unwieldy uniforms. The Thalid'ieeans, with their silvery gray scales and angular faces looked intimidating in them, but beyond that, and the fact that the woven, leatherish fabric offered more protection than other more traditional fibers, she could see no real tactical advantage for the sheer amount of hardware, buckles, and zippers. After the first day she had discovered how few buckles she could get away with undoing to remove the suit. Twenty eight was the bare minimum to slide it off of her body. It was ridiculous. Of course, she only removed it to relieve herself in the receptacle provided for her in the corner of her metal cell. She took it off for a little while to sleep, but got so chilled; she left it on after that. The boots had nine buckles each, and like the suit, were too tight in awkward places and hopelessly oversized in others.

Odo returned, gently pulled her hands from the buckles and led her to the bathroom, with its modest tub. She smiled briefly, broadly, at the steam that rose from it. Her smile faded as Odo fell into step unbuckling her. "Oh, Prophets, don't touch me! Please, I'm covered in week old vomit."

He ignored her, working the buckles loose efficiently but with gentle care. "I seem to remember being helped and held and touched by a young Colonel when I looked like the bottom of a pair of Klingon battle boots and thought I was dying. And she didn't think it was disgusting."

Kira closed her eyes. She remembered how frightened she had been underneath it all, how sickly and strange he felt beneath her fingers, her lips. She remembered praying that she would not break off pieces of him. How it made her ache to look at him, how relieved she was when they had cured him, and then almost before she had him back he was gone again. Not dead, worse almost; alive, perfectly, beautifully whole, but leaving, _forever_. Finally she opened her eyes again. He'd been watching her face, the play of memories and emotions flickering honestly over her exhausted flesh. When her eyes met his, he held her gaze for a long time. Held it for so long the room seemed to fade around them.

He ducked his head finally, helped her with her boots, unbuckling far faster than she could have in her current state. She watched him wince when he pulled them off and could see the extent of the open sores from blisters on her ankles and the sides of her feet. He loosened the final few buckles on her left and helped peel the ungainly suit off of her. Her skin was chaffed raw in more than a few spots. His touch became even more gentle at the sight of her bruised, starved body. Gingerly, he helped her into the bath, and then whispered hoarsely, "Nerys, what did they do to you?"

She sighed and closed her eyes, hissing from the sting of her wounds, then relishing the feel of the hot water and the sound of his voice forming her name. Her perceptions, the trailings of thoughts settled into slightly more normal rhythms. "Not their fault. They told me that I was beamed aboard naked and unconscious. They brought me what food and clothing they had."

She slid under the water for a moment and then emerged, rubbing the sheeting water from her face and eyes. She took up the soap he offered and ran it over her arms and shoulders. "The water they had was nearly undrinkable, tasted more or less like machine oil. I was given a typical guest quarters, but Bajoran anatomy and biochemistry are different enough from their own that it was pretty miserable. I've been conscious eleven or twelve days. Don't know how long I was out." Her voice lowered, "Or how much longer I would have survived without water or food."

The words made them both remember, and before she could ask, Odo said, "I'll go get a bit more soup."

He delivered the small glazed cup with averted eyes, as though the trip to the other room reminded him of how long it had been, and how very naked she was. Kira smoothed her lips from the tugging smile. She caught his arm with the barest touch when he turned to leave. "Please. Stay."

His eyes shone silver in the ambient light of the bathroom. He nodded - a small, sharp motion, so familiar to her, it was all Kira could do to pull her hand away. She sipped at the broth for want of something to occupy and ground her. Finally she felt steadied enough to speak. "Talk to me while I soak and wash up. Tell me about your life here, the people you help, your friends; Delegate Rahnu is very fond of you and seems kind."

Odo nodded. From the continued rise and fall of his eyes she could tell he was trying not to let them come to rest where her nipples peeked at him from under the water, she sank a few inches deeper, unable to hide the half grin that broke through her resolve. "The people here, Rahnu included, are all very kind to me. Overly grateful, perhaps, for the help I have offered."

He leaned against a wall facing slightly away from her. He spoke haltingly at first, "I left the link, as you can see. They taught me many things after I healed them. I experienced how they created the Jem Had'ar and the Vorta. I learned how to reshuffle and resequence the viruses and phages they have created to render them inert and harmless. My shapeshifting abilities have grown, Nerys, so very much. I existed as a space faring life form for several weeks, exploring a particularly lovely gaseous nebula. On this planet I have spent time shuffling amongst the storm clouds. It was unbelievably exhilarating. I finally understand what the Founder tried to show me the first time, in the Changeling Garden."

She smiled as his voice lost all hesitancy, and she closed her eyes and felt as though she was back in his office on the promenade. "To mimic is only how it begins. To copy a form. That is what Mora taught me. Truly, Nerys, my time forced into human form was a fascinating education, though it was meant to be a punishment. Previous to that I learned through observing and used my observations to shape my outer form. When the Link forced me into solid form, I became human. It was not an approximation or a mimic. I was connected and disconnected to my new self, and all its workings. Afterwards, I knew what it felt to be human, could recreate a much more precise, though not wholly accurate, version from the inside out. My working model of sensory input was much more functional, efficient, and elegant then before. I always found that my humanoid form tended to limit my tactile receptiveness, but discovered that I could increase it by creating humanoid nerve pathways and running threads of my gelatinous self just beneath the surface of mimetic skin. I created a vascular system in much the same way. I found it rather freeing and tinged my bipedalism with the same soothing pleasure of existing in my natural state. But, now, Nerys, now I understand what it is to become a thing. On a genetic level, on a subatomic level, to loosen the silicon based mimetic bonds and reform myself a carbon based solid, to sequence my very DNA to exist as a solid. It was how the Changelings evaded detection for so long; the learned to become human. I have learned to see myself for exactly what I am and can be, and that is everything else in the universe. It's so very sad that the Link has this understanding, but not the reverence for what it means. They cannot see past themselves to the beauty of that which they can become. "When I become a thing, I understand it, or try to. When they become a thing it is to master it, manipulate it, bend it to their will and sense of order. They have learned to want nothing but themselves. Even after I joined them they could not see past what they considered their superiority.

"I have learned so much, Nerys. I have been to four worlds, so far, ravaged by the misconceptions of the Founders, trying to put things right. The Founders want to right the devastation that they have wrecked, or they would not have taught me how to undo their genetic retributions; the engineered viruses and microbes that they've used to make examples of whole worlds. They regret their actions, but they are terrified of anything," he paused, seemed uncomfortable. "Anything or anyone they cannot control, much like the solids.

"They agreed to certain terms, they themselves recreated the Vorta and Jem Had'ar to have free will and basic solid biological drives for food, water, shelter, family, procreation and self expression. They genetically altered the worst of the violence out of the Jem Had'ar recreating them as guardians of all life forms, not just the silicon based Founders, though many chose to remain in protective service of the Founders.

"I think returning to the Link irrevocably altered it. I do not think they will ever again be the threat they were, but they are terrified of the sickness, of what happened. It will take lifetimes to rebuild trust between them and the solids."

"Hmm, s'good thing then, that you have lifetimes to work towards that goal," her voice stopped him, seemed to wake him up, snapped his attention to her.

"Do you miss the Link?" she watched him from beneath her eyelashes.

He nodded, "Very much."

He blinked and tipped his head back, looking skyward. She could tell he was measuring his words. It was as if he didn't want to concern her too much. When he spoke again, it didn't feel like the full truth. "I left when I was sure they would cause no more harm to solids unless it was to directly protect the Link. I have been traveling since."

Though she noticed his skirting of the topic immediately; she chose to let him continue. They would hopefully have time for that conversation later.

"The first two worlds were perfect to get my bearings on. They had only been targeted with the virus in a sweep of contaminations a handful of months prior to the end of the war. They still had thriving trade, functioning governments, economies, and intact infrastructures. Since then, I have helped two other worlds prior to this one. It was slower going with those; more of the population was incapacitated and while their infrastructures were fully intact, their economies were hovering on the brink of complete collapse. They are still struggling, but with a recovering workforce, and worldwide trade agreements reached, they are headed in the right direction. I still have regular communications with the leaders, and am working on jump starting their interstellar commerce.

"This world was slightly more severe. Their infrastructure was beginning to experience serious problems, but with almost the entire population cured, and the new interim government in place, they have almost finished all primary road, transport, structural, and public building repairs. Community aide projects are off the ground and functioning. Schools are back open as are clinics and hospitals. This province was the first I began working with, but due to an earthquake in another, I had to leave. There was much to be done, many to be helped and fed, clothed and sheltered." He closed his eyes briefly.

"So now I am back, and Rahnu and I are making sure that all tasks have been appropriately delegated, and I am finishing up healing the more remote populations in this area. We will be scouring the plateau and mountains for individual families and clans who have not come for help. We should be leaving after the incoming storm within a week or so, so you will have a chance to come see the Aching Mountains up close if you wish. If," he paused and looked at her through the steam of the bath, not quite meeting her gaze, "you are staying that long?"

Both had been careful up to that point, to not mention their common past or the future, or even the fact that she had travelled through a wormhole and prophets know where else to find him. So, there it was finally; he was asking her for her intentions.

What she wanted to tell him was how deeply she loved him, how much her time with him meant to her. She wanted to tell him that some nights it was almost too much to bear, this heart rending need she felt, the aching loneliness. That she would and had travelled the reaches of the galaxy to find him, and now that she had found him, nothing could force her away.

That wasn't true. All it would take would be for him to tell her to go. She willed the doubt out of her mind. To have come this far, only to have to turn back was not something she wanted to think about. She wanted to ask him point blank if there were others. Lovers. If he loved anyone the way they had loved each other. She fought with her only slightly less befuddled neurons to form a coherent thought that she could actually speak aloud, and could only come up with, "If you want me here, I would very much like to see them again, closer up."


	3. Part One: Chapter 3

~Odo~

Odo tilted his head, trying to gauge her, not wanting to prod her for information. He longed to touch her, to pick up the washrag and run it over her, over the angle of her shoulders, to join her in the water and let himself turn liquid and weightless in the tub so that he could touch all of her at once. He wanted to inspect every inch of her, to feel the minute changes of her body over the last 5 years in ways only a changeling could. But he did not want to presume – she was not his to own or possess- he had no claim to her. Reports from the alpha quadrant were that she had taken a lover or two but had not entered into any close relationships. Still she was private, and reports could be inaccurate.

"I don't want to intrude on the life you've created for yourself, Odo." The silence had stretched so long that her voice almost startled him. And there it was. She had said his name. Out loud. It had been barely a whisper, but she had said it, and he was still standing, the Gamma Quadrant hadn't imploded. "I … didn't mean to just appear out of nowhere like this. Or to presume there is even space for me here. I just…"

And he realized in the hushed, strained tone of her voice, that she had come because she couldn't stay away, and she was afraid, in the same way he was, that he had moved on with his life.

"Nerys," he whispered, drawing her eyes to his. She kept looking away and then back into his eyes, as though she could barely stand the tenderness of the look he gave her. He hoped that the love in his eyes would be unmistakable.

She blinked rapidly and closed her eyes tightly. He watched her chin tremble for a moment. She swallowed, opened her eyes to him and took a deep breath before she continued. "I needed to see you. To know you were all right." She looked for all the quadrant like she couldn't make the words she wanted to say loosen from her chest. Her whisper caught in her throat and dropped to a ragged breath, "I've … missed you." A flush pricked her cheeks at the admission. She cleared her throat, "I'm sorry. For all I know, you have... Look, I don't want to presume..."

Odo shook his head, reached out to brush his thumb down her cheek, across her chin. He shivered slightly as the textures of her damp skin echoed through him.

"Nerys. There has only ever been you."

He felt his words draw her heart to pounding. He could feel its thrum vibrate the air between them. The surface of the water rippled. She searched his face as though she needed to be certain he was saying what she thought he was, blinking back glistening tears. She closed her eyes and gave a relieved sounding little laugh. She leaned into the open palm he cupped against her cheek. And then she smiled that heart rending, dazzling smile of hers that made him ache, "I've missed you."

He touched her softly on each cheek, leaning down, shortening the distance between them. "I've missed you, too." She touched the thin line of his lips with water wrinkled fingertips, he hoped in time to feel the air from the last words cool them, and her smile turned private and shy. Something deep inside of him lurched at that smile, and he almost closed the remaining distance between them to kiss her. He restrained himself, focusing his attention to the understated sound of water lapping the edge of the bath. She needed a good night's sleep and a full belly, and her wounds tended before he would even think of his need to kiss her, to touch her more intimately. Instead, he stood, and stepped away. "Let me get you more soup. Maybe time for some mashed feena pod; it is sort of like an earth apple in flavor, mild. Rahnu made sure to bring only foods that would be gentle on your stomach."

Kira nodded, "I owe her a kindness, both for myself and for you."

He heard her call to him, as he filled the mug with the vegetable broth, and he smiled, for the casual tone of her voice made him feel for a brief moment as though there wasn't a five year expanse of time that separated them. "Would you bring me a towel and something to sleep in?"

When he returned, he watched her take a few slow swallows of the soup and a spoonful of the warm mash. He handed over the towel and placed the nightclothes where they would stay dry as she toweled off. He hastily excused himself, before she could leave the tub, in part not wanting to see how starved she looked, and in part because he didn't want to feel guilty for how deeply he wanted her.

~Kira~

She eased her haunches onto the edge of the bathing tub, the memory of the pained look on his face brought an easy, if small, smile to hers. She could taste that way his concern conflicted with his desire. She dried herself gingerly. Hurt all over, in part from being exhausted and hungry, but also from being rubbed raw by cutting metal and chaffing straps and from sleeping on buckles that pressed into a unyielding sleep platform that was designed for a species structurally different from her own. _Not the young resistance fighter I used to be. Getting soft in my old age._ Still, knowing he missed her, seeing how he looked at her, that there was no one else in her stead, these understandings comforted her, enlivened her.

She took a moment to really look at herself in the fogged mirror, wiping it clean several times. It was no wonder Odo looked worried. She was gaunt. _Well, weight is easily gained back_, she thought, _and the bruises, blisters, and raw spots would heal_. She toweled the length of her hair, finger combing it and drying it as best she could. _It was about this length when I first met him_, she smoothed the damp waves. _That was the last time I let it get anywhere near so long._

The robes were beautiful, they felt like a combination of Idanian silk and Terran suede, were woven and light, yet warming. They shimmered the same hues of pale pink and scintillating gold that the mountainside had earlier. When she walked through the cloth room partition, she did a little twirl, for Odo, with a lopsided smile. "If these are the pajamas, I can't imagine how beautiful the other clothes are.

"You look lovely, Nerys." The slit of his mouth deepened into a smile, "I'd forgotten how beautiful your hair is when it's long." He held his hand out to her.

She ducked her head, took his hand and held it between her own for a breath, and then cautiously maneuvered herself onto the cushions. "A bit greyer than it used to be. But I find that with it, I'm taken slightly more seriously." She settled against him, sighed deeply, and pretended that she didn't see him notice her grimace.

He smiled and touched a strand that fell against him. "It's very striking. Makes you look like even more of a force to be reckoned with."

That made her chuckle and relax fully into him. He slipped his arm around her back, and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her damp head. She fell quiet, and her fingers took to tracing vining patterns on the fabric of his thigh. For as much as the words flowed easily between them, there was still so much unsaid that it had to hold its own place in the conversation. When the silence stretched too long, one of them filled it.

Nerys was the first to speak again, "The food is helping. I want to eat some more before I sleep."

He nodded, "I was going to make that very suggestion." He took the opportunity to stand and gather together a small plate of the feena mash and another serving of soup. She sat up and pushed her damp wavy hair behind her ears. "Mind if I join you," he intoned, returning, plate and mug in hand, echoing that night so many years ago when they first sat together in the dull light of the station. "Pretty girl like you shouldn't be eating alone."

Her eyes snapped to his, and she held his gaze with an unreadable look for a long time.

"You saved my life. Changed my life," she finally whispered, again blinking back tears.

He smiled and settled next to her with the tray. "Funny, I was just thinking the same thing."

They chatted more or less easily over the next two hours, while she slowly ate her fill. She relayed well wishes from their friends, stories of Quark's Bar, told him of her trip to Earth to visit the O'Briens. Visitng the rolling green hills of Miles' island home and then spending a few days visiting Keiko's home town in North America. Then seeing a rain of petals during the cherry blossom festival in her grandmother's home in Japan. "Molly wants nothing to do with the Academy, but she has her father's mind for fixing things which tickles him to no end, and Kira Yoshi is getting so grown up. He is such a handsome little boy. Gentle, patient, and quiet. But with a devilish sense of humor. The perfect mix of Miles and Keiko." Her bowl of soup was nearly gone and she was meditating over the minced vegetables left on the bottom, when the low gravel roll of her name and his smooth fingertips at the nape of her neck drew her unwitting nipples to points. "Nerys. Time to sleep?"

She flashed him another sweet half smile, as he closed his fingers over her smaller hand.

"Not just yet," she murmured, leaning against him, letting the silence hang, comfortable. The reassuring pressure of his fingers held her smile, and after a moment the concern in his eyes softened and he smiled back at her. It was a comfort she hadn't felt in over five years. She drank it in.

Kira yawned, finally, hard and wide enough that they both began to chuckle.

"It's time," he said tenderly. "You'll take the bed. I can rest out…" He stopped midsentence when she gave him a pointed look.

"You can rest in the bed next to me. I didn't practically starve to death on a Thalid'ieean freighter for you to skulk off and gel in a corner." She stood and offering her hand, grinned at him. After a moment her face turned somber and her voice dropped to a whisper, "I need to feel you near me."

He rose and wrapped her in a tight embrace. She wanted to ask him so many questions, but knowing the best way to entice him into sharing everything with her was to stay silent and listen. He rubbed his cheek against the dampness of her hair and they rested in the safety of the other's arms until the next yawn threatened to split her face. At which point Odo chuckled again and steered her into the bedroom. He held up the coverlet for her to ease under, and then morphed his clothes to a loose pair of pajama pants before sliding in behind her. She was at the edge of sleep almost as soon as she registered him curled protectively around her body, reflecting her own body heat back at her. She reached behind her and hooked the back of his knee to pull him closer to her, suspected that within minutes she would be snoring softly. He let some of his substance flow out and around her. She dipped her fingertips into smooth amber, remembered his answer, years ago, when she asked him why he did it, "The better to listen to your sleep sounds, to feel the heat of your body. It's reassuring." They both drifted into unconsciousness, comforted by familiar rhythms.


	4. Part One: Chapter 4

~Odo~

He stirred throughout the night, rousing just enough to listen to her, to feel her, and then slide back into ageless, shapeless changeling dreams.

He rose to consciousness slowly, as the sun broke the glittering peaks. He refused to stir for some time, and when he finally did, he simply solidified and lay next to her, remembering each of the one hundred and ninety seven other nights he'd woken up next to her as she slept, some times peaceful and wise, and others, tortured and restive. To trust him with this piece of herself; he had cherished it dearly from the first night she had requested it of him.

_It had been after her body had been a vessel of the Prophets: possessed to battle the Pagh Wraiths who had chosen Benjamin Sisko's son Jake for the same purpose. He remembered how subdued she'd been. He remembered how sickened and drained he felt. He had gained this blissful and excruciating intimacy suddenly, only a few weeks earlier. To then face the prospect of all of it torn from him. It was a terrifying time. It was the only time he ever felt he owed a debt of gratitude to Kai Winn. Had she not meddled and intervened, he believed Kira likely would have died._

_The day had been busy earlier, he over saw the coordination of relocating the station's compliment of residents, guests, workers, and crew back on board. Odo made sure that things had slowed enough for him to take a few moments to walk with Nerys after she attended services. He timed his rounds of the Promenade to coincide. He had still been deeply concerned with the effects of having her body for all intents and purposes possessed. He hadn't considered the possibility that Sisko might tell Kira how her new lover voiced what he knew to be her wishes and beliefs. That she would view the possession as being chosen by the Prophets, a great honor, and that she would do the will of the prophets as they saw fit for her. He had not planned on mentioning it to her. It pleased him that she was so taken with his respect of her beliefs, that she had thanked him so tenderly. The look on her face when she kissed his cheek thrummed through him. He remembered at the time living in fear of the moment that she would tire of him and cast him away, but then she would shine a look like that on him and he felt warm hope at the possibility of her love. She returned to him, true to her word, after she had seen Kai Winn off of the station. He sat in the empty security office, finishing up the day's reports when the doors swished open. She was subdued, but there was no denying the change in her face when she saw him. Her eyes warmed and she flashed him a half smile as she settled in the chair opposite him._

_He listened attentively while she recounted her last moments with the Kai, encouraged by her usual disgust and impatience with the woman, nudging her to share more detail about her experience with the Prophets. She sighed and admitted to feeling overwhelmed and raw, and unusually chilled, though the doctor assured her that any lasting affects at this point were psychological, not physical. Still, she had seemed relieved when Odo suggested that they transfer their springball reservation to another time. "You look like you need a quiet night."_

_She considered him for some time with a look that he could never have even imagined she would shine on him. Silently, she rose, rounded his desk and squatted before him. She lay her palm on his chest, and caught him with a tender, private look. He never forgot the tone of her voice when she finally spoke, "I still want to spend it with you." She blinked a few times and her voice lightened. "What do you say, Constable? Quiet night at home on the couch?"_

_He returned the warmth of her gaze and closed his hand over hers, drawing it to his lips to kiss her palm, thrilling at the way she closed her eyes and took a deep breath when he did so, "My shift ends in twenty minutes."_

_She smiled. "Then I will let you finish up here while I go have a glass of spring wine at Quark's." _

_She kissed him chastely and rocked backwards onto the balls of her feet, standing in one smooth motion. He'd finished as quickly as he could and drew her easily away from the bubbles in the unfinished glass. Kira kept tight hold of Odo's hand while they walked. Her quiet worried Odo. She held her silence while they walked the maze of corridors to her quarters, entered and settled together on the couch. He ran his fingers up and down her arm and it seemed to rouse her voice. Only, after she started speaking, she worried him more._

_ "Sometimes it's almost like I can feel them around me, those who walk with the Prophets. My mother, my father, so many friends, and lately, Lupaza and Furel most of all. But tonight, I just feel cold and hollow. An empty shell."_

_"Aren't you?" She turned her head to look at him when he said it. He continued "A shell? You were vessel to the Prophets. It makes sense that you feel empty." He kissed the bridge of her nose. _

_She sighed and settled against him, relaxing into his arms, "Bashir assures me that all of this will pass."_

_"He's usually right."_

_He listened attentively to the various background static of her body, contented to be silent and let her talk. She filled what silences she needed to, but tonight, even he could tell that she took comfort in it, in him. _

_After her swollen bladder pulled her away from him out of necessity, he could hear her rustling through a drawer. Eventually, she leaned in the doorway, stripped of the carmine skin of her uniform, looking slightly sheepish in a bulky nightshirt of indeterminable pale color. "I hope you don't mind, Odo, I just wanted to get more comfortable."_

_He stood awkwardly, "Oh, of course, I will just let you get to bed." _

_"No. Odo," She went to him, blankets under her arm and stilled him with a touch of her hand. "Please, stay. I mean you don't have to stay if you want to go, but I want you to stay." She rolled her eyes at herself. "Listen to me. I can't even talk straight."_

_Odo touched her cheek and searched the dark depths of her eyes, "I'd say that you have good reason to be unable to talk straight."_

_She nodded, and shivered when he leaned down and placed the slightest, most reverent kiss on her forehead. After a long time she cocked her head at the couch, and set to work. "Come on, help me make it embarrassingly, ridiculously, guilt-inducingly comfortable. Toss those pillows over there, and here, help me spread this blanket. Now, this pillow, in my humble opinion, makes the best backrest. All right. Now, you first; you make an even better backrest." She wrinkled her nose and flashed him a sweet, silly smile._

_She crawled, unceremoniously dragging the second softer blanket, with a lack of her usual grace, over his body. She then settled herself against him with the greatest care. He watched her intently the entire time, with a half smile and a heart full to brimming that she would choose him, share this vulnerability with him. With a few turns of her wrist she spread the second blanket over them. Odo let out a graveled murmur and nestled deeper into the couch, nuzzling slightly against Nerys. She lifted her head and raised an eyebrow at him. "Comfortable Constable?" _

_He smiled, and ran his fingers appreciatively over the shoulder and sleeve of her pajama top. He could not think of a time when he had felt more comfortable, happier than he did at that moment. "I like these pajamas, they feel nice." _

_Kira rolled her face against Odo's chest and smiled. "Only you, with the sensory inclinations of a Changeling, would say that. It's my ugliest, albeit coziest nightshirt." _

_He smoothed his hands up and down her back, enjoying the weight of her, the solidity of sinew and muscle over bone, beneath the worn smoothness of the fabric, "But it feels so soft. It's all so comfortable. And warm. It's … good."_

_"So are you," she lifted her head a bit and whispered against his jaw. "I like to feel your voice." Silence settled softly over them again like the blankets, punctuated by the occasional slide of fingers and contented sigh. He'd drifted into a velvety, semiconscious state, when her voice roused him._

_"Odo?"_

_"Yes, Nerys?" he purred blissfully._

_"When will you need to regenerate?"_

_"I should leave by 2530."_

_She nodded quietly against him and didn't speak again for a few minutes._

_"Odo?"_

_"Yes, Nerys?"_

_"Can I ask you for a personal favor?" it was an unfair way to start the conversation. But at the moment, no matter how she began the conversation he knew he would do anything his lover asked of him._

_"Of course, Nerys."_

_"Would you," she paused, unable to look at him while she asked, and, he guessed, more than a little uncomfortable at the waver in her voice. "Stay with me tonight, Odo?" She finished in a rush, "And I don't mean hiding under the bed. I want you to stay with me, in the bed. Or on the couch, if you think you might slide off the bed."_

_He was silent for a long time, hadn't known that joy could run so deep and resounding that it physically hurt. And then, cold apprehension trickled into his core. It was a private thing, something he considered sacred, his regenerative time in his natural state. But, he mused, so was his private time with her. Then he imagined what it would feel like to nestle against her form as a liquid and he swallowed his apprehension. He was silent long enough that she felt the need to fill it. "I'm sorry I shouldn't have asked. I just... Big resistance fighter I am. Didn't want to be alone tonight." _

_Which made him ache even more. _

_He liked the thought of her feeling his voice, as he rumbled a low response into her hair. "I would probably slide off the bed, but the couch is at a gentle enough angle that I would pool near the backrest."_

_He felt her hold her breath for a moment before raising her eyes to meet his. "Really?"_

_He smiled and nodded._

_"Thank you." She hugged him tightly for several longs, deep breaths. He savored the slow passing of time in the circle of her arms. Reveled in the feel of her falling asleep, her body going completely limp against him, her breath deep and even. He had lain wide awake after that, keenly focusing on her every minute sound, movement, sigh. He didn't rest much even after he began his regeneration. He kept swimming to consciousness, even then, to listen to her, feel her. _

He remembered this all as he watched the light changing through the windows. He liked the play of sunlight over her skin. He liked the play of starlight over her skin, too, for that matter. But most of their time together had been spent in space, so he was partial to seeing her in the full light of planetary day. He felt the ache of that first morning together all over again, the sweet brimming elation, to wake to the warm weight of her resting in the pool of him. He drank it in.

~Kira~

She woke with a jerk and a gasp, wrapped around his solid body. "Odo," she mumbled into the damp blue fabric against her face. Slowly gaining coherence, she lifted her head up and groaned. "Prophets, Odo, you could have woken me up, I drooled all over you. Oh, you're all wet!" She wiped clumsily at the darkened wet spot.

Odo chuckled and so softly she was almost uncertain she felt it, kissed the top of her disheveled head, "And miss the snoring?"

Kira groaned again and sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes and dried saliva from the corner of her mouth. "I'm sorry. Tired."

Her belly gurgled.

"And hungry?" Odo eased out of bed, despite a half hearted grumbling attempt on her behalf to keep him in it. "You need to eat. I look at you and feel like if I touch you too hard, you'll snap."

Kira sighed a bit over dramatically, but relented and ate the food he brought her with slow enthusiasm. A larger serving than before, one that made her feel sleepy and full when she was done. He lay down and rubbed the bed, "Just sleep, Nerys. I won't leave you. You need to rest."

She nodded, knelt on the mattress and crawled next to him. There were words on her lips. She knew he knew her well enough to see them there. She held still, looking down at him, taking him in. The top of his shirt hung open, exposing skin she knew the feel of, mimetic bones she knew the curve of, exposing the raw edge of her desire. She had run her tongue along the flickering tendons of this throat, had claimed it as hers time and time again, with lips, teeth, the crook of her arm. She knew he would see her desire in the tilt of her head, the angle of her back, the look in her eye, even though her face remained smooth. She wanted to be angry at him for leaving her, to hate him, to never think of the weight of his body over her. But she couldn't even make herself want these things whole heartedly. Instead she wanted… Oh Prophets she wanted what she should not have, what wasn't real or possible, what had drawn her across half the galaxy. She wanted him. She wanted a life with him. So she held her tongue and she sank down on the bed next to him and nuzzled into his chest.

It was sometime later that she woke to her own sun warmed skin, and the low sound of voices in the outer room. Odo and Rahnu, working out more details of their next healing trip. Finalizing the teams and supplies and the route. Terrain, how many people, how to call together the people to maximize the healings. They had sent family members of Aching Mountain clans to send word to the communities of the estimated time they would be coming. Rahnu had heard back from all but one of these people. The last one wasn't due back just yet, but should arrive in the next few days. They had received word that they would be welcomed and the leaders and families in the community looked forward to meeting with them. The journey would result in the establishment of communication lines and relays, possible trade routes. Most of their team was chosen for their scientific interests in the region, seismologists, geologists, meteorologist, a botanist. Some for their skills with their Ventra and their knowledge of the terrain and how to survive if they were trapped in a heavy howl. She listened to them both for a long time, before getting up to relieve herself. Her legs hurt, but much less than they had the night before. Odo must have dressed the worst of the blisters around her ankles sometime in the morning while she slept; they were wrapped in bandages. Must have used some sort of pain numbing agent, too, for they were only slightly sore.

They heard her, for their voices lowered when she had finished toileting, and after a few moments, she heard the outer door open and then click shut. She pooled onto the warm spot on the bed and sighed again, letting go of all her instinctual drives to get up, explore, involve herself where she could in helping these people. Today, and only today, she decided, she would rest, enjoy the surprisingly stark beauty of the sweeping plains and glimmering mountains that the bedroom view afforded her, and eat as much as she could safely get into herself. Her stomach growled loudly at the thought. And after it did, she heard Odo fussing with cupboards, containers, spoons and bowls. She hoped he would spend the day with her, but decided before he walked back in carrying a platter and bowl, that she would say nothing of this desire and encourage him instead to not alter his regular day, if it came to it.

~Odo~

He paused a moment in the doorway to take her in. The natural light of this world, something that happened as the sun's rays passed through the atmosphere, was something else. It bathed everything in golden or rose tones, even hues of purple, depending on the time of day. Clothing was usually chosen to be flattered by the light. She was a vision. Every time he saw her, her strength and beauty gave him momentary pause, but the light of this place agreed with her, and the robes that flowed over her body accentuated that light. Her hair fanned out in auburn curls on the butter colored pillow. His thoughts lingered on the pale hollow of her throat, his desire to trail his sensitive fingertips over it, to ease back the folds of her robes and feather touches over the rest of her skin. Skin that would also be unearthly beautiful, freckled, and etched with the violent turns of her life. And these thoughts evoked fevered memories of the soft cries he had drawn from her flesh in the past. It was his time to smile shyly, when she asked him what he was thinking about.

"How beautiful, you look," he rumbled after a moment, "how much I've missed you."

~Kira~

"Ohhh," Kira intoned with a slight smirk, letting him know with raised eyebrows that she was not entirely convinced.

She allowed the arch of her back to deepen slightly and made no motion to sit up. Five years had passed, but she still knew him. His was a look that stirred her own heart to beating faster, when she caught it on his face. They stayed as they were for a handful of minutes. She decided, it was good to be intimate enough with another to very simply lay back, and drink the other in, and enjoy the heart swell it created. He wore a silvery blue tunic nearly the same shade that he had worn for his wedding to Lwaxana. She had always considered him intriguing looking, not handsome quite, but appreciated the angles of his face. The night of the wedding was the first time it occurred to her that he was not just handsome but striking; beautiful in a haunting, alien way. And here he was, luminous; the tunic turned even more silvery in the amber light. She nearly told him how lovely he was, how she wanted him, but, stilled herself to silence, until she could manage a warm, but composed, "Sit, Constable."

Hearing the nickname was enough to make him smile fondly and remember himself and the platter in his arms. He sat on the edge of the bed nearest her, offered her his hand, so that she could lever herself up into a sitting position. She grinned, "Two breakfasts in bed? You must have missed me."

"More than you could imagine," he responded in a rough whisper, his eyes dropping before turning his face to the mountains.

Her hand found his and held it tightly, "I'm pretty sure I can." The words drew his face back to hers. The love that poured from him was a near tangible radiation.

Once again, her stomach pulled them both out of their reverie. She held up her hands, "Ok, ok. The body says eat."

He smiled broadly and nodded as she tucked in. She smiled back at him. It was the first time she felt able to eat with her regular gusto. Large bites, with relish. She rolled her eyes and groaned at a few particularly good morsels. She chatted with him through half mouthfuls. He told her of the plans for the next few weeks, asked her opinions and advice, got a pad of what appeared to be paper and took some notes to review with Rahnu later. It amused her to see that he still wrote in Bajoran. Then she felt sheepish, he was in some ways irrevocably Bajoran; was raised Bajoran, it was his native tongue, his first language. Of course he would still write in their language. This made her throat ache, and so her voice creaked slightly when she asked him about the planet, and the beautiful sunlight, and he told her about the phenomena, the immediate surroundings and the more populated regions nearer temperate forests and lakes. "These plains, they stretch over a vast expanse. This compound serves as a gathering place and a hub for space trade. There is a large scattering of nomadic clans throughout the region, who all meet here multiple times a year to trade with each other and sell padru pods, herbs, roots, medicines, weavings, baskets, clay bowls and cups, precious stones, whatever they can find or make on the steppes and in the mountains, to traders who come from other ports. Throughout the year people stop in for medical treatment, supplies, to send messages, charter flights to other areas. They are very resilient, these people. They have fared well, despite so many of their populace suffering from the Blight. This complex has been the area's only refuge, their main contact with the outside world, and now universe. It seems relatively small, but is deceptive that way. It serves millions who otherwise would go for months and months without seeing others. They are as I said, resilient and generous, but can be suspicious and mistrustful of the intentions of strangers, both off worlders and those of their own kind. They care deeply for their families and townships, but have difficulty thinking globally after suffering for a generation with their sickness. They call it the Blight. It starts with bloom shaped discoloration of skin and scales, then localized feather and scale loss. Eventually they suffer from multiple debilitatingly painful sores. They can typically lead a relatively normal life, but suffer constant pain and irritation, and disfiguring boils and scars. Their space ports have been barely operational for nearly as long, and most other worlds avoid them, for fear of catching their affliction. The Thalid'eeians are just about the only race that still regularly trades with them. The metal alloys they use in their ships, in the many buckles of the clothes they gave you, are highly valued on this world. They trade for different ores and the husks from the padru plant's seed pods. It is, apparently, an excellent insulator and flame retardant, and they weave it to create everything from the leathery fabric of their uniforms to the restraint systems they employ in their ground vehicles and sub-light ships, to protective linings for their nesting platforms. I am told it is highly sought after on their world. They actually requested yours back before they left this morning. I gave it too them; I hope you don't mind."

Kira laughed. "Thank the Prophets. I was planning on burning it, but it sounds like that wouldn't have worked very well."

She came to the end of her meal long before their amiable chatter slowed.


	5. Part One: Chapter 5

~Odo~

"Is there somewhere I could take a bit of a walk nearby, while you are busy working today?"

Odo shook his head. "I'm done for the day. I took care of everything that needed my attendance before you woke."

He lifted a hand to still the ensuing protest before she could make it, "Rahnu can handle anything that arises, and yes, I would love to walk with you."

The Bajoran woman looked distinctly as if she was considering arguing for a moment more, but, instead shook her head and smiled. "Well, then, I had better get dressed." She stood and stretched lavishly; obviously enjoying several satisfying pops as joints and bones settled into place and the contortions of a long sleep worked themselves out. Odo followed her every motion with his eyes and finally tore himself away to bring her the basket of clothes from Rahnu.

"Don't these people know about pants?" Kira murmured as she pulled out three beautiful dresses. "They are lovely, though." She smiled and hummed over the colorful fabrics, settling on the pale green dress. "It reminds me of rain wet grass on an overcast spring day."

Odo took advantage of her attention to the colorful gowns and quietly left the room, giving Kira the privacy to change. He could almost see the half smile and eye roll the action probably earned him. She walked through the leathery padru weave partition moments later, swimming in the elegant fabric, which tented her too thin frame.

"Uh, Odo, am I wearing this right? It's about as baggy as that Thalid'ieean monstrosity."

He chuffed at her with a doting look and passed back into the bedroom. His fingers picked sensitively through the exquisitely soft fabric until he found what he looked for. He returned with a very narrow very long sash that was a darker shade of green. He held it up for her to see, then he moved behind her. He took a se;fish moment to run his fingers through the soft length of her hair, feeling its weight, the waves of the individual strands, the heat of her body clinging to it, then gathered and twisted it to lay over her shoulder. She shivered when his hand brushed her neck, which made him smile. Then he delicately snugged the dress to her body as was the fashion by winding the sash around her bosom and ribcage. He worked with his usual sense of precision, but slower than he perhaps should, taking deep pleasure in her nearness, in the subtle brushing of his fingertips against her body through the silken fabric. The sash did well to accentuate her lean torso and angular shoulders, but not over accentuate the current boniness of her ribs and hips. He let his hands cup her hips for a moment when he had finished, and felt her slightly deeper inhalation, slightly shakier exhalation. It made him close his eyes and smile. The sleeves hung past her knuckles and Odo showed her their little ties, so that they could be pushed up to the elbow and cinched.

"You can't be serious? So, if I were just your average working woman this is what I would wear?" Nerys turned a few times, when Odo finished, seemed to take secret enjoyment in the billow and flow of the slippery soft fabric. "Not that it isn't beautiful, just impractical."

Odo grinned, his body humming from touching her. "Unlikely. But it _is_ what you would wear as an active politician or business or community leader. Their caste system is not as restrictive as the old Bajoran one but there are still class distinctions that fuel planetary dress and fashion. As you can see," he held open his arms so she could see the gathers, and sashes that held his clothes in place. The sash wound further down his torso than hers, and the wide pant legs appeared to be gathered in several places as well. "The men's are similarly, as you said, impractical for any sort of manual labor. But you shall need your own clothes at any rate, so practical can be arranged."

"Alright, because at some point I will need a pair of pants."

Which earned her a gruff chuckle, "We can get you some when we go down to ground level."

"Good, maybe we can find a ball and some paddles?"

His throat opened into a full blown laugh, "So I can wipe the currently nonexistent springball court with you?"

"Keep talking, Changeling," she grinned and swatted at him. "We'll see who wipes the court with whom."

He felt like he was flying as he led her through relatively deserted corridors. He felt giddy, it was the only word he could think of to describe the lightness. The delight in simply being in her presence, walking next to her. Several times, her body bumped against him, and each time, he felt every point of contact along his side momentarily lose cohesion. He longed to go liquid against her again, to feel her in his true form, as he had when they rested the night before. He heard himself, as though someone else were talking, prattling on about the world, the Arches, but all he was really aware of was how very beautiful she looked, and how close to him she walked.

"Most everyone inside the Arches is working this time of day. When we get outside we should see people coming home to habor the storm. When the winds pick up this place comes alive," he told her as they spiraled down the helix of lower level metal ramps and then finally outside. The complex itself stretched overhead, two buildings arced gracefully over a two and a half mile circular footprint. They crossed in the middle, running perpendicular to each other.

~Kira~

She stood close to him and sighted along his arm when he pointed out the many small wind turbines hanging down from the middle portion. She stepped away fairly quickly, as his proximity distracted her too easily from what he was saying. Around them, smaller, single, two and three story buildings filled the base. She could see the protective wall of the city behind them, stretching thirty meters into the air. Odo's voice continued its rumbling drone, "When the storms really pick up the energy converted by the turbines is used to power shield generators to keep the Arches and ground dwellings protected."

She nodded, "Clever. Make the problem part of the solution."

Odo pointed out the turbines again, "They look small, but they're over 20 meters across. They are the main source of energy during the darker winter months. We're in fairly northerly latitudes. The tops are covered with solar paneling, but that is only really useful during the summer months. They have a fairly strong renewable infrastructure as far as energy resources. It is one of the reasons their society was not harder hit by the Blight. That, and while painful, and eventually, debilitating, most were able to live and function with the disease, for nearly half their natural lifespan at least. I have been encouraging the governments to find people who used to work in specific industries and pair them with apprentices, to rejuvenate the store of knowledge."

It felt good to walk planetside, to feel a sun on her face and breeze against her skin, teasing at strands of her hair. Better yet, to walk next to him, with the sun on her face and the breeze against her skin. She cocked her head, listening to him with more than a little pride, watching him out of the corner of her eye. He was at ease. He was comfortable in his own skin in a way that almost surprised her. Not quite, for he was doing what he came natural to him: creating order out of chaos. He moved easily, he spoke easily, at times even emotionally about the people he had helped, how they had struggled, and continue to struggle. She took in the odd assemblage of houses and buildings they passed. Yards, gardens, outhouses, some homes lived in, some vacant, some gardens overtaken by weeds, some neatly tended, sending fresh succulent green and red and purpled leaves to shine amidst the rich brown soil. "I take it not many of these plants," she indicated the many varieties of fernlike bushes and trees they passed, as well as the gardens, "would survive outside the complex walls."

Odo nodded. "The nights get too cold on the plains; and the winds too savage. When the spring storm starts squalling tomorrow night you will hear it. The Arches are built aerodynamically so that the wind flows around them. In strong enough windstorms they sing. It's almost like the sound a ships engine makes in high warp, though less sharp and whiney.'

"Look." She leaned into him again, to sight along his forearm. Felt her nipples swell when her breast brushed against him. "That platform? That is Landing Platform Forty Two, where the Thalid'ieean ship docked. That gives you a sense of size. A ship twice the size of the Defiant could dock there easily. They once had a thriving space trade. I am hoping that it will rebuild itself. They are already actively trading with the Bajorans and the Lissepians, and we are negotiating trade with the Karemma and the Luxans, a race I believe Worf would appreciate in both their prowess and honor."

Kira noticed that he let her set the pace, and that he watched her closely. Knowing him, he was still worried about her, was watching for signs of fatigue. His attention made her turn inwardly for a moment and pay heed to the pain she ignored. The salve he put on her blisters eased her pain, for she placed her feet carefully, but walked without limping. She still had a bit of an all over ache, but no longer felt anything of the gnawing hunger that had gripped her for so long. Sore and tired, that was all. It pleased her that she was healing rapidly. She could not tolerate feeling weak. Stopped her brain from descent into dark memories, other times she had felt weak, out of control. There was no point to go there, she was here now. Didn't need to be drawn back to times and pains past. She shook her head, and focused her attention to the buildings. A lot of the outlying buildings looked empty. He saw her gaze and gestured with his hands, "They are homes and shelters for families who are living on the steppes and in the mountains. They are not all empty. Come lets go this way, there is a neighborhood that is usually active and trading, whether or not any specific clan is home."

The ground was paved with claylike tiles, and was relatively uneven, but Kira held her own. They chatted amiably about life on this planet and the random details they came across, a small feathered, lizard-like creature that perched, sunning itself on a low wall. It skittered away when they walk past it, its feathers fluffed and flashing bright green and burgundy. She stopped herself from reaching out for his hand a half dozen times; her skin still smoldered where he had brushed against it when he wrapped her with the long sash, where she had brushed against him during their walk.

It was midday, and with only a mild breeze blowing, they ventured into what Odo called Olehva's neighborhood. These streets were far busier than the one's they had traveled so far; filled with people coming and going. Some returning from their walkabouts, others meandering about their daily routine. Several families filed past them, doing their best to avert their eyes. They led laden pack animals. They were tall, narrow beaked beasts with oddly short necks, pale golden scales and sparse, elegantly spotted and patterned brown and blond feathers.

"Those are vehntra, Nerys," Odo murmured to her. "They may look intimidating, but they are docile and handle the terrain well, and will not back down should we encounter a sehka cat, a large carnivore species that inhabits the Aching Mountains. We will be using the vehntra to pack in supplies and as protection when we travel through the mountains. They are quite useful and reliable animals."

The vehntra followed their masters obediently on their tethers. She scanned the crowd looking at the many docile but intimidating looking creatures and realized just how much attention Odo was drawing. Most were looking at them but attempting to appear to be looking at anything else. Many faces bore freshly healing scars, pinks and reds of raw but healthy flesh. You could feel the gratitude in the air, see it in their eyes. She pulled herself into her Colonel Kira stance, and assumed her standard neutral but welcoming ambassadorial face. She didn't want to presume anything about his intentions, and did not wish any of them to presume anything about her intentions towards him. Odo seemed to catch this, as he looked at her then and smirked briefly before his expression strayed towards guarded concern and he lowered his voice, "If you are too tired we can take a side street and head home. But if you are up for it, I'd like to see if I've helped all their clan members yet and to check in with a few families who I know I have helped. I was hoping to secure the services of at least one or two more vehntra owners."

She resisted nudging him and swallowed a smirk, "Odo, I'm skinny and sore - I'm not dying, go ahead."

He discreetly passed her a woven pouch, and pointed out a cart with colorful scarves, "Try asking her where you can find clothes, I may be a while. Here, take my translator, I can manage without it."

"See you when I have pants, Constable. And spring ball fixings." She said in her most official and impersonal voice. She tilted her head and began cutting through the moving street towards the scarf vendor. Over fifteen of the vehntra were visible on this block. They all behaved tamely. They walked with the feet of their hind limbs flat on the ground, large claws visible but retracted. Their front limbs seemed disproportionally long, they rested their weight on thickly padded knuckles, claw-tipped fingerlike digits curled into their palms. She wondered how they would fare in the mountains with such oddly shaped bodies; hindquarters low to the ground, high broad shoulders and short thick necks made them seem ungainly. As did the odd combination of feather, fur, and scales present in most of Sehlas' inhabitants. They possessed singularly large, curved beaks. She watched as the one closest to her gently took its owners hand into its vicious looking beak and mouthed it with a gentle affection that drew a smile to Kira's lips. They passed close enough for her to see flecks of dust caked in the hair jutting from its nostrils. It made a low shuddering hissing sound as it walked.

Many people watched her but none spoke. The woman pushing the cart with richly colored fabrics happily told her where she could find clothes. She bought a few of the scarves. The woman balked at the amount she offered, and showed her what was fair, and chided her to learn the monetary system faster, or she would be swindled before she walked forty steps. Kira nodded, trying hard not to smile, completely reminded of her father's bossy but sweet Aunt Jerrahl, whom they stayed with from time to time.

It felt good to be connected to her body and muscles for the first time in almost two weeks. The wind picked up some, and tasted of wet prairie. Like the southeastern corner of Dahkur province during the spring storms. She smiled and wondered if she would see and taste her home in every world they went. Then reproved herself for the presumption; it was not her choice to make, joining him.

She was eager to contact Ezri, and was sure that there were more than a few worried messages awaiting her. Still, she wasn't quite ready yet to surface and rejoin the working universe just yet. She felt awake to everything for the first time in a long time.

The merchant of the recommended shop had the lean wiry frame of a marathon runner. He was her age, perhaps, or the Sehlian equivalent. Boisterous and helpful, but not overly pushy, which pleased her. It did not take her long to find several pairs of warm pants, a few wide legged and flowing like a dress. She considered this a reasonable compromise with the tendency of the women to wear dresses and skirts. She also chose a few that were closer fitting and more suited to calisthenics and spring ball. She described springball and he told her of a young man one alley over who sold balls that bounced, and some that didn't. She smiled. She liked the shades of blue and green that seemed popular, and bought several tops in varying hues all similar to the dresses that Rahnu had given her. Her purchases were practical, but elegant, and were things that she could layer. One tunic was a rich rust color with silvery blue needlework that flattered her hair and skin. He steered her towards a padru fiber coat, which would suit the journey through the mountains and threw in a beautifully embroidered pack, which she bundled her purchases into. It was nearly hidden behind some woven cushions, and was a bit busier that she normally liked, but it caught her eye. He clasped her hands and wished her gentle winds during her travels.

By the time she exited the shop, four children were waiting for her, fairly shaking with pride at being chosen by the Changeling Odo to escort his friend Kira Nerys of Bajor back to their homestead. She bade them come with her to the ball shop which sold all manner of toys and game, and let the children each choose a small item for themselves and had the shop keep wrap up enough extras that all the children of the clan might have a little something. Based on her description, he sold her several balls, which upon inspection, she deemed passable as interim springballs. The paddles he had were rather flimsy and a poor substitute for what she was used to, but would have to suffice for the present. When she was finished the children led her several streets over, gleefully heralding her arrival. They shouted and sang, bounced from steps, to street, to gate, to street again, falling back from time to time to take her hand and smile, fluff their feathers and bat their eyes and laugh when she swung them in a wide circle around herself.


	6. Part One: Chapter 6

They soon led her to a large courtyard around which four good sized houses stood. Several children played a game tossing a stick and chasing each other, while a young woman looked on from a chair, noodling away at a stringed instrument. Several tables were set up in the sun, readied, it appeared, to receive a small feast sometime in the near future. The other children heard them first, and ran to elders to yelp and point, who in turn looked up and then stilled the children's pointing. One of them, a solid, wiry woman stood and strode towards them, her arms out in welcome. Odo stood behind where she had been sitting, back turned, gesturing to several young men. The woman bore corded pink scars that chewed through her chestnut brown scales: the remnants of the Blight that ate away at them. The scars looked smooth and healed, glossy, but covered most of the flesh of her face, neck, and arms. Then she smiled. _A smile like the light of the sun_, Kira mused, thinking about something Lupaza had said to her a lifetime ago. The woman smiled and she couldn't help but smile back.

"Welcome, sister! Kira Nerys companion of Odo of the Changelings, who has healed us! My clan and I, thirty four of us suffering, were freed of our burdens near the coast, when he visited the Oslanai Province, seven months ago. Come! Eat with us. Allow us to share the bounty your friend has made possible," she said, her golden eyes alive and joyous. "Any friend of Odo of the Changelings is clan to us." She stopped half an arms length from Kira, crossed her wrists and offered her palms to the Colonel. "I am Olehva Dahl, daughter of Dahlva Kehn, grand daughter of Kehnva Alahn. All leaders of the Clan Shan'va'ur. And I am pleased and honored that your journey brings you to us."

"Most kind greetings to you, Olehva Dahl. I am Kira Nerys of Bajor, of the Alpha Quadrant," she paused, unused to introducing herself in relation to her female ancestors. "Daughter of Kira Meru. And I extend my deepest gratitude to you and your clan for your kindness to my friend and myself. The honor and pleasure is mine."

"Bajor! A wonderful world, it must be, to create such beautiful women and fine food. I have tasted something called hasperat in Oslanai province, when we visited the southern coastal cities a year ago. Perhaps someday, I shall have chance to taste it again."

Nerys nodded and smiled, and followed Olehva as the Sehlian woman led her to the growing crowd of family members. Everyone but the three young men that Odo was speaking to had fallen into an expectant hush, some watching Odo, some watching Kira.

"Thaw yourselves, my sweets, this is a rare celebration to be able to honor he who freed us! It is not often he comes down from the Arches to visit us and with such a handsome companion." Kira mentally rolled her eyes, so much for discretion. "The winds will kick up in a day and we are sheltered, with more family set to arrive any hour. Blessings are raining upon us." People began to loosen from the main crowd and begin to tend to tasks. Olehva seemed very at home leading her throng. "Vinu, wake up old man Sammus and see if you and Hesha can whirl him into a full fledged performance." She glanced at Kira, "He really plays the limahr remarkably. Has gotten us through many a howl that were spent hunched over in a dome, the wind threatening to tear us from the firmament. Now, let me begin introductions, or my dearhearts will never know what to do with themselves." She rattled through a litany of names, each one attached to a smiling face and extended palms.

"Come," she said, when she had finished introductions, "We feast to welcome home my brother and his wife's family. They are hastening to fly faster than the storm, so we have the biggest pot steaming over the fire. When you have walked with the wind cutting through you for months, there is nothing better that the haven of the Wall and a warm meal, in the arms of friends and family. But first, come here to my home and let me wash your feet." Kira balked slightly but swallowed her protest and followed her hostess obediently.

It was easy to forget Olehva's scars. They were secondary to her charismatic nature. The two fell in step together and Olehva guided Kira into her multi family home. It smelled of cooking, and herbs, soap, and the sweet late summer scent of sun dried grass.

"In here," Olehva beckoned, holding open a slated door. "If you would leave your sandals here. Hang your bundles on those hooks, no one will pester them." There was a basket, brimming with footwear set next to the door. Just inside a stool sat next to a low sink with a drain. Olehva showed Kira how to sit on the stool and rest her bare feet in the foot bath. After inquiry and explanation, Kira consented to the foot wash. "You do not do this in your culture?"

Kira shook her head, "No. If it were done... Well it would be considered to imply the subservience of the washer."

Olehva tilted her head. "It is not so much about subservience, as it is a welcome. A greeting. Nothing feels better after a long two or three weeks' Walking back to the Arches than to be greeted by beloved family members, and to have one's feet washed by loved ones to refresh you for the welcome feast. Although, I suppose it also symbolizes the opposite of what it would in your culture. No one member of the clan is valued more or less than any other member; I wash the feet of any who come to this dwelling, no matter their status. We all help each other; I think that is the easiest way to explain it. Oh child, you have suffered ill fitting shoes as of late!"

Kira had forgotten how abused her feet still looked, and made to draw them away from the clanswoman, but she was up and moving around. "Let me just get some, ah there it is, some salve."

She gently massaged a cooling soap over the wounds and the rinsed and dabbed on salve. She rewrapped the Bajoran woman's feet and the helped her back into the sandals. All the while she chatted about the oncoming storm and the family that she was still expecting. "My brother and his wife and her clan and their two children should arrive soon, by sunfall."

When they were done, Olehva stood to lead the way back out of the house. The foyer and walls of the entry hallway hung with a number of finely woven and stitched tapestries. "These are beautiful," Kira intoned, not quite touching the edge of one of the larger ones.

Olehva smiled, "My family's handiwork; some are my husband's, that one was woven by his father and his father's brother. The triangular one of the Aching Mountains was by his younger brother, before the wind plucked him from a narrow pass on his way home from the Plateaus."

"This one," she pointed to a small, uneven hanging, "My son, Tallis, made this while he was still small enough to need to be carried during most of our Walkings. My husband's younger brother would often carry him in his sling when he tired. "They were very close." She motioned Kira to follow her. "In some ways it was harder on the children to lose Ennus than it was for them to lose their father. But still the howls blow and the padru sends its flower out to seed."

Kira followed the woman. "The howls blow, but I would wager the domes still feel empty during your Walkings."

Olehva sighed, her smile blown temporarily away, footfalls making the steps down to the yard creak slightly, "The days pass, but they do not lessen my sorrow or my love. Something tells me that you are someone who understands this."

Kira nodded. Olehva's smile returned. "All the more reason it is good that you are with someone who cares for you as your Changeling friend obviously does. The days pass too quickly and soon the wind will call us to walk with it."

"I couldn't agree more, my friend." Kira shivered slightly thinking about the comfort of waking up in her lover's arms. _Don't presume_, she reminded herself. _You have not settled anything yet. He hasn't been your lover in five years._ Or so she tried to tell herself, for she had never stopped thinking of him as such. It was what had made her few dalliances with others so very uncomfortable. Still the morning had been frighteningly blissful, so full of hope and unspoken promise. It was actually unnerving to be so content. Experience had taught her how short lived bliss can be; that it is taken as easily and quickly as it comes, sometimes faster.

Olehva smiled, "It is lucky that you and the bringer of "science, not miracles" happened by when you did. The feast was set for our kin, but the wind brought you as well."

The children who collected her from the clothing merchant had scattered off shortly after she arrived to show off their new treasures and now the clan's other children filtered into the edges of the group of adults. Nerys nearly laughed at the first one bold enough to brave Olehva's words and pluck at the Bajoran's sleeve, with raised eyebrows and smoothed feathers. "Heska said you bought us playthings, Auntie?" Kira chuckled, and offered up the fair sized sack of toys she held, "Will you be in charge of making sure each child has one that they like?"

"Me?"

Kira smiled, "Yes." The girl nodded solemnly with wide eyes and took hold of the sack. "I'll be fair. You can count on me." Her eyes widened even more when she looked into the sack. "Oh, thank you, Auntie, thank you! Fierce kind of you, this is."

She turned and ran to where the other children hid, watching. Olehva nodded at the Bajoran woman when she had finished with the child. "That's a kindness not soon forgotten, Kira Nerys of Bajor. We are rich in love, but not always in material belongings. The children want for nothing, but market-bought toys are rare and treasured things." She gave Kira's elbow a firm squeeze and motioned for her to follow. "Come, we will start the feast early."

At first Kira tried to remember names, and then gave up and just called all of them sister or brother, or Auntie and Uncle, depending on their age relative to her, which seemed to be how they addressed each other. The proudly shared their food, which she noticed Odo ate without comment. She liked this food much better than the relatively bland fare she had eaten so far. It had heat and personality. She was a little afraid of how her system would react, but after the fourth elderly woman pinched her arm and told her she needed to eat more she stopped caring, and just walked around with a nearly full bowl of fragrantly spiced vegetable stew.

It was not, perhaps the most restful thing for her to be doing, but she fended off Odo's concerns when he sidled over to her and made them known. She reassured him that she was fine, and would let him know if she wasn't. After their initial curiosity over her connection to Odo, and her alienness; her smooth, scale-less skin, hair without its edging of feathers, her too-many fingered hands, and her backwards bending knees, they seemed content to focus on him and let her sit relatively quietly. True, Odo was alien to them as well, but they were used to him and she supposed, the two of them were different enough for her to pique their curiosity. She let it slip that Odo enjoyed dancing, and grinned evilly as he was dragged, rather willing, into the middle of the street. Sammus had been wakened and he and Vinu and Hesha had been painting the afternoon with their music, which livened significantly when Odo joined the dancers. She worked her way to the back of the crowd and found a spot to sit, contented with a moment of quiet for herself, and a chance to watch Odo enjoying being a changeling, the movement of his current form. He was different. She knew he would secretly delight in learning new dance steps, but she liked how gracious he had become about how others perceived him. Olehva broke through the crowd and invited him into a very stylized set of steps. Soon they were both stomping and spinning each other around. Others paired off and joined them. Again, it struck her, _he is at ease, comfortable in his skin._ It had begun after he let Laas go, and come back to her. It was the first night she thought she lost him; only to have him return to her like a ghost she couldn't quite believe was real. It was the first night he made love to her as he was, as he wished to be. And he was electric mist and then rain and then wind on her skin. She had never realized what he was capable of before that night. No matter how he changed, how different the forms, the touches, it always felt like him. She surprised herself with how natural it felt, how unfazed she was. She touched him how and when she could, and at times, just relaxed and let herself experience him as she never had. He brought her to tears more than once that night with his sheer beauty. _"You look like how you make me feel," she said clumsily, quietly through her tears. "It may not make any sense, but it's true. You are the most beautiful being I have ever met. I've always felt so, but now I see how true it is."_

After that, something changed in him. In the way he carried himself. He loved her before, trusted her before, but after that night, it was as if he felt free to be himself with her in ways he never had. She reveled in this burgeoning side of him, but she had only begun seeing the changes in him when he left again. Now, he was much more like his 200 year old Gaian counterpart. Only fulfilled. That was what it felt like to her. It felt like he was doing something that fulfilled him and made him feel necessary and valued and helped to ease the guilt of his species' many atrocities.

"He is important to you."

Kira turned her head to the soft voice. It was a woman, older than she, but not yet elderly. She had scars like the others, but even through the scarring, her face was gentle and her eyes kind. Kira remembered her name from the mass introduction, amazingly. "Nimu, was it?"

The woman nodded and settled down near Kira. The Bajoran woman looked back at Odo for a moment before answering honestly. "Yes. More than I would care to admit to most people." She smiled and with a sigh drew her knees to her chin, her body churning a bit from the food.

Nimu nodded. "It's hard to misinterpret, the way you were looking at him just now."

"I suppose it would be," Kira stifled a yawn. "It's been a long time since I have seen him, and it is good to see him enjoying himself."

"It is always a hardship to be parted from those closest to us. I am happy for you that you are with him now. He has helped this planet immeasurably. When he healed us, he explained how it was not magic but a science different from our own. I cannot say. I only know, having the sickness just lifted away from us: it was a miracle, of science or the Gods, I know not which, but a miracle, true. He seemed so solemn then. It warms my heart to see him joyous and open as he is today."

She watched Kira try to hide another yawn and giggled. "Come, Kira Nerys of Bajor, daughter of Kira Meru, sit here in this corner, here is a cushion. You can lean into the wall and rest, and still have view of your dear one. Set a moment, while I get you a blanket."


	7. Part One: Chapter 7

~Kira~

She woke, cradled, rocking, and warm in the purpled light of dusk. Odo was carrying her. She mumbled into his neck and he shushed her, "Rest, my little solid. We're almost there."

To her surprise, she didn't protest, but instead let herself be lulled by the rhythm of his strides, only rousing enough to object when they reached the building. He chuckled and set her on her own two feet, trying very hard to pretend he did not notice her stumble, though she knew he could not have helped but see it. They walked inside and up the curling ramps.

"This is a lovely corner of this world," she said when she was finally awake enough. "I have rarely encountered such warm people. Of course, it helps to have connections." She nudged him with a grin, stifling a yawn. They rounded a corridor, and Odo gestured to his door.

Once inside, he went straight to the food cupboard. He spoke over his shoulder, "They have been very kind and gracious, and have worked so hard to rebuild what they lost because of my people."

She stopped him, with a hand on his wrist, before he could begin to assemble her plate. "I'm still full. Thanks."

Her hand didn't leave his, she held on to him. "You have done so much good here, Odo. Helped so many. Their society has a chance to thrive again because of what you have accomplished. Don't talk around that or downplay it. Not to me."

A little too late, she realized how close she was to him, how he smelled of the wind and city below, and how much she needed to touch him, to touch more of him. How she could feel his need, through the meticulously formed skin of his perfectly still wrist, through the air between them. Blue eyes held hers. She felt her cheeks burn and her breath caught carnally in her throat.

"Nerys."

Her name on his lips almost broke her resolve, so she stepped into him, tore her eyes away from him, slipped into the circle of his arms. She spoke again in the soft restrained way she had when she didn't want to sound too emotional, spoke into the flesh of his throat, "Oh, my sweet Constable. You left. And I sent you off with love. I survived without you. Will survive without you. But after five years, I am tired of feeling empty. I couldn't bear knowing you were out here, somewhere, and I was there."

And several beats later, whispered so quietly she wasn't sure he would hear her, "I need you."

"I need you, too, Nerys, so much."

She squeezed him tightly, felt him return the embrace, "I can never offer you what the Link does and I won't keep you out of it, but the Link will outlive me by millennia. I've had five years to grow selfish, Odo. If you need me to go, I will. But I don't want to leave you."

"What of Bajor?" he murmured into her hair.

She sighed deeply. "I love my people. I love my world. Bajor is still struggling and blooming, and I am tied to her. But as big as the galaxy is, it's getting smaller and smaller everyday. I don't want a life apart from you, Odo."

"I don't want you to give up your life. How could I ask that of you?" Odo finally rumbled, gripping her where his hands fell, emphasizing his words. She couldn't suppress the shiver it brought to her body.

"Even if I don't want you to go," he rasped softly, pulling away from her enough to catch her as he always did, with the clear depths of his eyes. The sorrow she saw there, the love, mirrored her own, and it tugged at her chin, started the little earthquakes that marked the flow of her tears. She fought again for composure and settled for blinking back those tears. His gaze never wavered. He drank her in, she knew by the tilt of his head; he was taking in the little differences. She hadn't aged much. The fine lines around her eyes and mouth deepened slightly. Her auburn hair was marbled here and there with strands of grey. "You are more beautiful than I remembered. I've missed you; seeing you smile, hearing your voice."

"I've…. I love you so much I can't breathe sometimes." she finally whispered, and looked away again. She squeezed his hand tightly in her own.

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed whitened knuckles. "I'm so sorry I hurt you, Nerys," he rasped.

She closed her eyes, took a deep, slow breath and finally opened them, trying hard to look honest and determined and whole. "No. Odo, you can't be sorry about that. You finally have the freedom to fully be who you were born to be."

She traced his lips, the plane of his cheek with tender fingertips. "You have helped so many worlds, so many peoples. I've never seen you so focused and at ease with yourself. Who am I to," she trailed off when her tears spilled over finally, cutting twin lines down her cheeks. "How can I be that selfish?" The whisper took on a fierce tone. "How can I let you apologize for that?" She shook her head and coughed a strangled laugh, roughly wiping her face with her free hand.

"Besides I didn't let it stop me. I'm here now. I can see you," she held his gaze intently and laid her tear damp hand against the center of his chest, "feel you. That's what matters. I just can't give up hope that there is some way to build a life for ourselves, that helps both of our peoples, and both the Alpha and the Gamma quadrants. I think Bajor would be well served should we accomplish that."

He leaned his forehead into hers, and stopped himself just shy of kissing her. "I love you, Nerys."

"I never doubted it," she murmured against his lips. She let out a shaky exhale and turned in his arms, leaning her back against him. "If I kiss you, Odo, I'll end up making love with you. And if we make love, I'm not leaving. I won't just let you walk away from me again - not without a fight." The vastness outside the window had darkened out of existence and she saw only the reflection of the two of them floating in the darkness. "I need you to know that."

"Stay," he whispered against her earlobe. Fingertips trailed across her abdomen and she gasped, surprised by the raw current it opened, that lit across her hips and thighs, curled up her ribs. "Please."

His fingers trailed over her hips and he found the edge of the long sash and began to unwrap her carefully, slowly, rolling the fabric neatly, brushing her skin through the dress as he did so. She shuddered and arched her back, leaning into him. Her arm slid up, fingers trailing over his neck, through his hair, and when he lightly kissed and then nipped the soft skin of her exposed throat, she hissed and pulled him tighter to her.

~Odo~

He finished uncinching the dress and stepped away from her, barely able to keep him solidity, setting the sash roll on the counter. He could feel her arousal mingling with his, electrifying the air between them. She turned, and shrugged the silky green dress from her shoulders to pool at her feet, and stepped out of the sandals she wore. Bruises already beginning to fade, she stood before him, sculptured and statuesque. She was still too thin, but all he could see was the way she looked at him from under her eyelashes, the soft set of her breasts, the stark contrast of pale flesh tipped with dusky nipples, the sensual jut of her hip, the dark thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs. When beneath mimetic cloth, his erection formed itself, not out of his conscious thought, but out of a sort of learned physical response, he did nothing to still it. They stood, facing each other, not quite touching. She slowly moved away from him and he followed, pulled into the bedroom by the gravity of her dark, bottomless eyes.

Something had changed in her face, in the set of her gaze. The need was still there, but the edge of it seemed sated somehow. He stood close to her. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from her slightly warmer body. Close enough to see the reflection of his face in the depths of her eyes. He bent down to kiss her, and hesitated, her humid breath coursing across his lips, not quite making contact. It began like that, with the barest of brushes, first lips against lips, barely touching. He brought his hands to her arms, ran his thumbs over her pronounced collar bones. He curled his fingers and drew his knuckles up her throat, over her jaw and then opened his hands to smooth over her cheeks and forehead, over her hair, down her back, over the swell of her hips. All the while he held her eyes with his, held his mouth just apart from hers, shared breath with her.

Her flesh sang to him as he moved against her. Every centimeter told him what he needed to know in the most minute of its movements, every shock of pleasure, every coursing thrum of desire, stories of longing and need, of desire and loneliness. She nipped his chin lightly and then caught his lower lip between her teeth. He rumbled against her, the feel of her mouth against his, finally, after so many years, kissing him with such restrained passion, it shook him.

He followed her when she dropped to her knees on the low bed, pressed his hips to hers. He let his clothing go liquid, groaned at the tantalizing feel of her skin against his substance, then solidified to press his own freshly formed skin against hers. She gasped and held him tighter for a moment, then dipped her tongue between his lips, and hummed her pleasure into his mouth. Both settling into a familiar game of give and take, each playfully teasing, testing to see who would cave to their needs first. Odo made a sound, finally, in the back of his throat, a sort of guttural growl, that made Nerys' eyes burn, and suddenly she was pulling him down on top of her, vining her legs about him, receiving him entirely with a gasp. They clung to each other, stilled momentarily, silent, almost reverent in the exquisite shock of the sudden joining of their bodies.

"Nerys," Odo purred finally, reverently. "I love you, so much."

She shuddered against his lips, unable to answer him with anything but a breathy series of deep kisses, and the welcoming tilt of her hips. They built a primal rhythm, drawing even more pleasure from the other's sighs and groans. He happily let her roll him onto his back. Groaned, when she straddled him and ground deeply against his hips. She met him stroke for stroke, never looking away from him.

He had grown to love her silences during their love making. Breath punctuated by a sharp gasp or a clenching of her abdomen or curl of her toes. He loved the way he could make her twitch and writhe against him. It had been too long since he'd heard the breath shudder out if her. Even now, as she rode him, her muscles flickering beneath her skin, his name was the softest of windblown sighs escaping her lips over and over again. As their motions grew more frenzied, she fell silent. Finally she managed to whisper, "I need to feel you."

He knew immediately what she meant, and maintaining his overall solidity, allowed portions of his body to resettle into his natural form. They both shuddered at the sudden increase of intensity. Nerys gripped him to her, and Odo groaned at the sensation of her wrapped around him. Tendrils of his substance caressed the flesh of her thighs, kneaded her hips, trailed up her back. He felt cool and hot and electric sliding against her skin. They lost sense of anything but this desperate animal sharing of their bodies. Kira bucked sharply and went completely silent when she came. He gasped and then growled at the sensation of her body pulsing and rippling around him. She fell forward, against him and held him tightly and she rode out the waves of pleasure. She continued to rock her hips as he slowed, wrapping his arms around her.

"Don't stop," she gasped when she was able, and he obliged her with gentle, exaggerated thrusts, lost in his own pleasure, solid and liquid at the same time in the slick heat of her depths. Her breath evened a bit and she kissed him deeply, slid her tongue erotically over his. "I've loved you for so long," she breathed, barely audibly, angling her hips to receive him better. He rolled them both over and groaned as he sank deep inside of her. She cried out, quietly, as she held tightly to him. He slowed down again, trying to draw out their bliss as long as he could.

"Oh, prophets, don't stop. Please, I need you Odo. Oh, don't stop," she whispered, panting, her words trailing to quiet mewling cries and then silence as he increased his tempo. She arced and strained beneath him, her eyes closing, and her breath whistling in and out of her lungs. Her entire body clenched around his thrusts, and then shattered into exquisite soul shaking spasms as he drew first one and then two more deep, guttural, body wracking orgasms from her supine form. He reached his own climax toward the middle of her last orgasm, and her body clenched tightly around him when he cried out his pleasure in a jagged moan. He collapsed against her, let his head fall between her breasts. They both lay gasping, sated, and senseless. She pulled him tightly to her still shaking body. Palms found his arms, and gripped them, as if to steady herself. Her breath slowed. She smiled shyly when he gently wiped away the tears that slipped down her face. They shared a deep slow kiss while her body continued to twitch and spasm around his member. Both took to trailing swirling, sensual patterns in the skin of the other, where ever fingers or tendrils happened to fall. He shifted all of his substance back to solid flesh, and was fairly quickly distracted by the paths her fingers found while meandering over his body. He smiled. They had all night.


	8. Part One: Chapter 8

~Kira~

The soft skin of his throat was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. She smiled and kissed it lightly, nuzzling against it when the kiss drew a low hum from him.

"Morning Constable," she murmured, lifting herself onto her elbow, to smile at him, and then sought out his mouth. She could still taste herself on his lips and tongue, and it made her chuckle appreciatively.

"Last night was…" She trailed off smiling.

He sighed and tightened his arms around her, and sounded a harrumph that fell somewhere in between sensual, appreciative, relieved, and self-satisfied.

"Uh, yeah. To say the least," she laughed, hard and for a long time at the sound. _Instead of crying, for once,_ she mused. Though she still ended up wiping tears from her eyes.

She propped herself up on her elbow again long enough to plant casual but tender kisses on either side of his temple and the tip of his chin. Couldn't seem pull herself out of his eyes. Pushing herself upright, she fluidly straddled his lap. Her smile kept breaking the straight face she was trying to hold. It stilled momentarily and then flashed wide again.

He smiled one of his private half smiles at her and cleared his throat a little.

"Tell me," she rested her weight on his thighs and held out her fingers, twining them with his.

"I love it when you are giddy, and can't stop smiling. I … never told you so, but I do." Her chin wobbled for the briefest instant and then she wrinkled her nose and laughed and leaned forward to rest against him. The reality of him in his solid form never ceased to amaze her; the texture of his skin and hair, the firmament of bone beneath flesh, and the knowledge that he was drinking in the feel of hers with every passing breath.

They lay together a long while. Kira finally squeezed his hands. "You have a world to finish healing, my dear one. And you cannot save anyone smelling of last night's lovemaking. Time to shower and start the day. How long will the meeting run?"

"The one you will be attending should not last more than a few hours. And afterwards, it would probably behoove you to visit one of the climbing wall gyms. Level twenty-seven has one that is specifically modeled after parts of the Aching Mountains."

She sat up and pulled both of them out of the bed. "I was going to ask about that. I need to take a run today as well."

"Several announcements will be made within the hour," he continued as they went into the bathroom. "I will be holding a healing session in the early evening, for any scattered clansfolk trickling in out of the storm. Between that and meetings I should be busy until after dark."

She started the water for the shower. "That's fine. If I have extra time I will explore the Arches or city a bit more to learn more of the people. I was going to ask you to show me how to access online libraries and information sources, so I can educate myself a bit, while you are busy. Don't suppose you came to this planet with a text translator?"

Odo nodded. "Standard federation issue; got it off of a Bajoran trader three or four years ago. Useful little gadget."

Kira stepped over the edge of the tub and into the stream of water. She sighed deeply and relaxed into its heat. Odo followed her and they enjoyed a lazy half hour teasing each other with soap and the warm spray of water that cascaded on them.

"Not the most efficient use of time or water, but we are clean," Nerys commented as they toweled off, pausing long enough to pull him into a brief kiss. He helped her dress again, coiling a sash the grays and blues of storm clouds over a slightly deeper blue dress. She chose the dress for the meeting, as she would be seeing Rahnu, and wanted to thank her for her generosity, but into her new pack she rolled a tunic and pants. The dress would not do for climbing or running.

The briefing went well. She listened and watched intently as a series of topographical and satellite maps slid across the viewing screen. Everything was meticulously planned, which, knowing Odo, did not surprise her. The party was twelve people, large enough to fan into three groups of four. Six of the group were Vehntra Keepers, four of whom grew up in and along the Aching Mountain Range. They would have one pack animal to every 2 people and minimally one guide who was familiar with the terrain to each group of four. Rahnu was leading the expedition, and besides Kira and Odo, was including three of the Arches' premiere scientists, who would to collect geologic and meteorologic data. They would also set up signal strengtheners at the various travel shelters and near cave encampments. Rahnu had spearheaded this effort, Kira guessed, by the way she spoke about its importance in connecting wandering clans with the Arches communication hub.

Kira had to fight to keep her face smooth several times throughout the briefing, when Odo voiced worst case scenarios concerns over multiple points. All reasonable observations; they were just so him.

Afterwards, she thanked Rahnu again, for the loan of the clothing. "Keep it," the taller woman said waving away Kira's protest.

"The colors suite you," she lowered her voice to a discreet volume. "If not for yourself, then accept them as a gift for your friend, Mr. Odo. This planet owes him a debt. It pleases us that these last few days have seen him so very full of life and of vigor. You bring him much joy."

Kira blushed slightly, and after a pause quietly responded, "I thank you for your generosity, Delegate Ehnar, to both myself and Odo. May the winds be always at your back."

Rahnu smiled, "Unless they are to bring you the smells of your home."

She enjoyed her workout. The climbing wall was very challenging; it took her the better part of the afternoon to get more than 30 feet up without falling. All around her Sehlians scaled it with amazing speed. She focused on her own progress. When she couldn't climb anymore because she couldn't feel her bruised fingertips she repelled down and cleaned herself up. She liked the distances between things created by the spiraling ramps and enjoyed an easy jog down a few levels. She wandered around a level full of fountains and vibrant potted plants that grew both flowers and edible fruits and leaves, judging from the Sehlians who randomly plucked and ate things around her. She saw what appeared to be several dining halls, shops of all kinds, childcare and school facilities, other gyms and climbing walls. It was a self contained city in its own right, like the station. From there she returned to Odo's level as directly as she knew how.

He welcomed her with slow, deep kiss that made her breath rattle in her throat. Distracted by the feel of his mouth, she let herself be led into the room, to the small table, which was set with a fair variety of foods. "I thought you would be ready to start sampling more of the local favorites. And that you would be hungry from your workout. After we finish I thought you might like to take in the night from the arch's lower viewing windows. The city comes alive at night just before a storm."

Nerys grinned, and sat on the low cushion at the table. She let him walk her through the different dishes, recognizing some she had seen from the night before. She filled him in on the subtler workings of her day; climbing, falling, and the likes. And relayed gratitude and well wishes from nearly every Sehlian she had come in contact with; news travelled fast in the Hub that Odo of the Changelings had a friend and guest visiting. It was easily discerned from her decidedly un-Sehlanoid appearance that she must be said companion.

Her appetite had returned with the exertion of the climbing and her jog. She couldn't help but notice Odo's obvious satisfaction in this; he grinned with nearly every bite she took. She filled and emptied her plate twice as they talked. Apparently his penchant for doomsday scenarios had frightened Rahnu enough to make a few minor adjustments on the amount of first aide supplies and food stores they were bringing. "If we make the window between storms we can leave the supplies at the shelter, otherwise we will be supplied enough to not hurt the food stores of any clan we stay with. This is what I have worked for, Nerys; only ten people came to the healing tonight. There were days when I would heal hundreds at a time as fast as I could get to them all day long. Now, only ten were in need. After we help the people in the mountains and establish communications relays, this planet won't need me anymore."

"And then?" She raised her eyebrows in between bites of suthi cake. "Have you chosen the next world we will go to?"

He nodded, "I have already been in contact with its leaders. They are a cousin race to the Sehlians, live two solar systems away and used to trade with them. It is a similar version of the disease that was unleashed on this population, only they have suffered for much longer, and have virtually lost the ability to fix and tend their technology. It will take much longer to help them stabilize. I am hoping that the Sehlians will help with technology exchange and sharing educators to teach them. My goal is to rebuild their trade relationship as well. They are near enough neighbors to be on good working terms with each other.

"I am also hoping you will help me by teaching the leaders to work on a grass roots community level. If the communities are working towards helping themselves, the entire planet will heal that much faster. You understand on a visceral level about how to get small groups of people to work together for the greater benefit."

She watched him, and felt the familiar tenderness and pride well up within her. "You always did thrive on piecing together puzzles. You've done so much for these people."

She stood then, leaving her nearly empty plate, and pulled him out of his seat and into her arms. She kissed the center of his chest and rested her cheek on it, "My sweet Odo."


	9. Part one: Chapter 9

~Odo~

He stood with her, stilled and slightly dumbfounded, on fire and enjoying the sensual meander of her fingers.

"Tonight," she whispered conspiratorily against the line of his collar bone, after she had tasted it with the warm, wet, trailing tip of her tongue. "I want you as you are. In your natural form."

The request alone nearly sent him to his gelatinous state. He knew she felt it as it rippled through him. She stood on her toes and caught his mouth in a searing kiss and as he returned it he slowly let go of his solidity. She gasped when she felt the strange current of his natural form and her eyes opened. He shivered against her, alive and expectant with the feel of her. The taught skin, the slide of hard muscle beneath it. He held a roughly humanoid shape against her.

"You are so beautiful," she told him, as he curved and shimmered around her, taking her in. The words made him ache like nothing else could. He unfurled coils of amber to delicately undress her. She responded with the same level of desire that she had the night before, running her hands sensuously over and through whatever part of his being she could lay claim to. He wrapped around her lower abdomen, drawing erotic sighs from his lover's mouth, and lifting her off her feet, eased her into the other room and onto the low bed. He shifted parts of himself from gel to a vapor and drifted electric mist across the pale expanse of her skin, drawing the fine hairs of her body to rise, sensitively. She slid against him and her body tensed, muscles rippled beneath her skin. He teased the humid cleft between her legs, dipped into the place that most reminded him of his own true nature. He felt her move rapidly towards her release when something began to happen. He sought her body with his substance, and suddenly felt her thrilling through him; her body began to melt into amber where it touched him. He shivered in disbelief and at the sudden tide of her experiences, ideas, emotions.

She gasped at the sudden change of awareness; then he could feel it surge through her. She panicked, seemed to lose herself momentarily in the overwhelming influx of sensations. Wide eyed, she thrashed enough for him to pull away from her and solidify.

"Nerys, you're safe." He wrapped her struggling body in his arms, as soon as they reformed, and stroked her hair, shaken by her panic. He closed off the fleeting, impossible impression of the beginnings of their link into a far corner of his mind, "You're safe."

"What happened?" she panted, wide eyed. "We didn't start to…"

He nodded, trying not to think about how exquisite it had felt to know her like that, for the briefest of moments, "To link."

She blinked rapidly, swallowing her breath to calm the cold prickle of adrenaline. He had known her long enough and through enough situations that he recognized it in her eyes. He could see as she shifted into Colonel mode. Her face went blank, professional, focused, her words vibrated through his whole body. "They … they asked me what I would be willing to do, when I went to the Link."

"You went to the Great Link?" His voice took on a strained tone, fighting the sudden sense of shock.

She nodded, searching his eyes, her face softening slightly. "How do you think I found you?"

He was silent, a little afraid of what they had done to her. Tried not to think of how they were before he left.

"I don't know what it all means." She rolled away from him and wrapped her arms around herself. He watched her silently, willed her trembling fingers to still. "They seemed angry at first. The Link crashed like waves against the rock, seemed divided, like part of them wanted to know more and part of them wanted me gone. I stood my ground and pleaded with them. They sent a representative. Several. They asked about you, about us. They left me. I waited for days, beamed down emergency rations from the ship. When they addressed me again, the Link rippled, but seemed calm. They asked me how much I loved you. They asked me what I would sacrifice to be with you." She stopped as if she had forgotten this part of the story until she told it.


	10. Part One: Chapter 10

~Kira~

"What did you tell them?" He cocked his head the way she remembered him doing.

She lowered her eyes for a moment and then looked at him, "The truth. That I love you more than any one being should love another. More than my life, more than myself."

She took his hand and squeezed it tightly, "And that I would sacrifice anything to be with you."

"They told me that they would take me to you, but I had to come with them back into the Link. I don't know what they did to me. At first it was as if they were exploring me, prodding, testing. Then they pulled me under and I blacked out. The next thing I remember is waking up in a cold bunk in a locked guest cell of the Thalid'ieean vessel."

"How did you feel?"

"Strange," she shook her head."The only way I can think to describe it is like myself and not like myself. Beyond that I had a headache and nausea the first few hours after I woke up. But, I got so sick eating their food, I sort of forgot that I felt any different. Have they turned me into a Changeling?"

"I don't think so," he rumbled, "not entirely. Your DNA, when you are solid, you are Bajoran, but you felt like a Changeling to me when you began to lose cohesion. You started to link like a Changeling. It points towards your physical structure being altered on the subatomic level. That would enable you to move back and forth from silicate to carbon based."

"Could it be a trick?" She sucked in a deep breath through her teeth. "Oh Prophets, you don't think they would alter me to infect or hurt you in some way?" Her face was even, smooth, which she realized was enough to give away the sudden cold sluice of fear she fought to hide.

"No, I don't get the sense that it is anything like that."

She looked at him disbelieving. She shook her head a little, her eyes going far away. The muscles in her jaw tightened at the coldness in the pit of her stomach. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because, Nerys, when they hurt me they are hurting themselves. I am not sure what their intentions are, but I don't think you are a booby trap." He stroked her face, and she could tell he was turning something over in his mind.

"Nerys, if they have altered your DNA sub atomically - and it feels as though they have. If your body is shifting back and forth from being molecularly silicate to molecularly carbon based, it is probable that you will reform according to the genetic blueprint of the point in time when your DNA was transformed. Over time there will be degradation, but..."

"What do you mean?"

She knew what he meant, but wanted him to say it out loud anyway, "If they have done what I think they have, your aging process may have been dramatically slowed."

She had wanted to be sure that was what he was saying. But the words flowed over her numbly. She didn't know how to react. She tried hard not to think of it, but the faces of those she had left in the Alpha quadrant swam before her; Ezri and Julian, Miles, even Kirayoshi, would wither and die before her. It made her breath go shallow in her chest, and the cold feeling in her gut returned. She looked at him with what she suspected were wide, wild eyes. Kissed him firmly, not once but twice before stating in a voice that was strangely calm, "I need to take a walk."

He nodded. "I'll..."

"No," she shook her head. "Please."

"Odo," she put her palm on his chest, and anchored herself to it for a moment. "I love you. This isn't about you. I just … need to take a walk." The stillness of her face began to slip and she suddenly felt as small as she was, and caged, the panic edging back into her throat.

He knew then, she could tell, that she was holding on by a thread, and didn't want him to see. Nodding he held his long fingered hands up, surrendering control of the situation to her, "Do what you need to, I'll be here."

She nodded and suddenly could not hear anything beyond the thrum of her heart and how it fluttered like beating wings in her chest. She dragged on a pair of pants and tunic that she had just bought and tied on the woven shoes. It occurred to her that he probably ached from the teasing touch of her melting into him, that already he would long to taste it again.

She turned, and left, the partition swaying slightly in her wake. And then she was through the door and bolting down the hallway. Her short legged stride turned from an impossibly fast walk to sprinting run in four steps, desperate to outpace the roaring that was swimming up from the back of her brain. She ran upwards, turning coil after coil, growing dizzy and somewhat mesmerized by the unending spiral of it. She ran for kilometers up the gently winding ramps, and she was only a few turns from the peak when she pulled a muscle in her ankle. It was not terribly painful, but uncomfortable enough for her to lose her stride and slow as she reached the top of the arch. She stopped at the peak; viewing windows yawned overhead. The night sky opened above her through holes in the fast moving cloud cover. She realized all at once that her ankle actually did hurt a fair amount and that her lungs burned like they hadn't in weeks. It made her feel fragile and Bajoran, and the thought made her smile and choke back tears. Tears that she wished would stop threatening to derail her. She hated the tears most of all. Had since he left her. Hated that she wept alone in the cold quiet hours of the night when the absence of him grew too much. She hated how quickly they threatened to spring to her eyes now that she had found him. It made her feel weak. She stretched her legs and then her ankles. She reached up to the clouds that whipped past the sweeping viewing ports, felt her vertebrae settle and pop comfortably into place. She prayed then, for the Prophets to guide her. Closed her eyes held out her palms and let everything drop away from her with a deep exhalation. She prayed for forgiveness for her lack of faith. She prayed to look at this as a gift, with humility and gratitude. She prayed for guidance. The chill of the adrenaline drained from her and she was finally able to turn her thoughts to what had just happened. It had been too much. The feeling of coming apart and being reinvented cell by cell, atom by atom, really. She reasoned that Odo would keep her safe. That it would have been much different if she had been expecting it. Still the muscle memory of it flowed up through her arm; the very real panic of the looming reality of her vital organs being morphed into an entirely different substance. The pressing flood of sensation, so alien to everything she had ever experienced.

She chided herself. She wanted this. Had apologized for the limitation on more than one rending occasion. Wished it with her whole spirit. Prayed, even. And now she had it. Could give him the connection he physically needed. And would possibly live to spend nearly the rest of his life with him.

And now she understood fully what he must have felt like, discovering that he would outlive everyone he had ever loved, ever known, and would ever know.

They had asked. Had been very clear, in their own cryptic way, in what they had asked. She turned back, walking, taking the coils slowly, considering the dramatic shift she had chosen for her life.

_She had thrown herself fully into her work after Odo left and Sisko had taken his place amongst the Prophets. She kept the station running at peak proficiency, trained and built a staff that ran the place beautifully. She hosted events, delegations, peace talks between the Founders and the Federation. (He had never come with them, or sent word through them as she secretly hoped he would.) She wanted to believe he was gone forever. To move on. But she could feel him out there. _

_Through the first few months after he left, she was constantly on subspace with O'Brien working out the stations' bugs. Between losing him to Starfleet Academy and Rom to his rather surprising new role as Grand Negus it was a wonder the station survived those months. But she finally found a Chief of Operations to rival them; a slip of a girl who barely seemed old enough to be living away from her parents, let alone old enough to keep an entire deep space station afloat, but the station seemed to whisper its workings to her. This alleviated many of her headaches, but she couldn't seem to sleep. She missed him with every breath, with every step. She missed him when she dined with Julian and Ezri, she missed him at station meetings. She missed him at the replimat, while walking in and out of services, when she went to Quarks, played springball. She hated going to the security office. She held all security debriefings in her office in ops. She lived, she smiled, she laughed, she functioned. And at night she lay in her bed and stared out the viewport into space and couldn't sleep. By the end of the third year she was exhausted. She never let her work suffer, but worried those closest to her. Even Shakaar, began to stay in much closer touch. He invited her planetside often. She declined more often than not. Didn't particularly like the young politician he was seeing. But she visited Kasidy from time to time, whenever meetings took her to Bajor, was amazed at how fast baby Jeni was growing into girlhood. When Ezri finally put her foot down, she took a transport to earth to visit Miles and Keiko. It was her first real vacation, away from the station since he left. She had overheard Molly talking to Keiko. "She just seems so sad. I never remember her being so sad."_

_She came back from her stay with their family feeling empty. She threw herself into her work with fervor. She had to work or she would be lost, she knew that much. She ran the station, seemingly unfazed. She attended meetings, parties, ceremonies. She drank her usual raktajino in the morning. She began crying silently, every night. _

_So the time passed, she went on. She tried to forget, she briefly and decidedly unsuccessfully dated several men. She worked, ate, and slept, kept the station running as smoothly as it could be expected to run. She even gained political notice and approval for her vastly improved negotiating skills. She was often on Bajor at meetings and in conferences as the world strengthened after surviving two occupations. She fought hard for the rights of the people, for jobs, and trade, and medical care. Much to her embarrassment, and against her wishes, Shakaar had a secondary school in Musilla province that she helped find funding for named after her, as well as a hospital in Dahkur province. She was well known, and highly respected. But at night, when she was alone with her thoughts, it all seemed so empty. She knew she was doing good work. Knew her people needed her. So why was the gamma quadrant the only way her thoughts fell when all other responsibilities were tended, when she was reaching desperately for slumber and it wouldn't come. _

_She had done everything Ezri suggested, taken the sleep hypospray that the Trill insisted on, made sure to keep connected with the friends she was in touch with, made time to spend with them, and spent time away from the station on the planet. Although, it didn't seem to matter, for she felt like she was walking around asleep all the time. She had taken to practicing springball at all hours of the night when she couldn't rest and felt she was using the hypospray too much. Half the time it was because her body took her to his office, only it wasn't his office anymore. So to play it off, she continued past the security doors and headed to Quark's for a holosuite and a computer generated springball partner. And at night when she prayed to the Prophets she prayed for him. For him to find his way, for him to be following his path. And that the Prophets keep him healthy and safe. _

_It was Quark who finally woke her up. _

_He showed up at her door with a bottle of spring wine. "Colonel!" _

_ She rolled her eyes, and to her own surprise let him come in. "What do you want, Quark?"_

_He ignored her at first, set about pouring the spring wine into two tall narrow glasses. When he finally turned around with the bubbling glasses, she was standing hostile, with her arms crossed over her chest. "Can't I offer the station commander, the holder of my lease, and my favorite Bajoran a glass of spring wine?" _

_She eyed him suspiciously. "Is this laced with anything?"_

_"Colonel! You wound me! Why, the very implication that I would try to slip you something offends me." His face split into a sharp toothed grin. "Although, not a bad idea." _

_"Of course," he added lifting his hand, as her look turned icy. "I would never stoop to incapacitating the station's commanding officer. Certainly not one who has been as good to me as you have."_

_"Then what is it?" She took the glass finally and sipped cautiously. "What do you want?"_

_"Good vintage," she added, as an aside, for the spring wine was quite fine, whether or not the Ferengi barkeep was annoying her. _

_"Just wondering what it is going to take," he offered casually._

_"Take?" The colonel made no effort to hide her irritation._

_He made a distinctly ferenginoid hissing sound, "To get you to go find him already."_

_"Quark, what are you talking about?" even though she knew full well._

_"You have completely ruined the pool. I had you pegged for no more than two years before you went to the Gamma Quadrant to find him."_

_She bristled. "Quark, get out. This conversation is over."_

_But he didn't move. Instead his voice dropped to a tone she had never heard from him before. He sounded almost gentle. And more surprising she could hear the honesty in his voice. "He loved you more than he loved his own people. And based on everything I have seen you feel the same way. Colonel, you weren't like this after Bareil. You mourned but you moved on. Why have you waited this long? You know how stupidly stubborn he can be. How blindly single minded. He's out there, missing you as much as you miss him. Probably thinking in his idiot way that he is protecting you from a life with him. Go to him. He has always needed you more than anything else."_

_She stood, silent, dumbfounded, wanting to lash out at the little Ferengi. Instead she turned and walked to the window. As if on cue the wormhole bloomed open and then flashed shut. And as she did every single time she saw it since he left, she wished it was him returning to her. "I can't leave this station, my people."_

_"Well, why the hell not?"_

_She threw him an irritated look, but he continued, "You are damn good. But Endarah Sohn has more than proven himself a solid candidate for taking your shoes. He has been an exemplary second in command, from the moment he came onboard. He even gives me a run for my latinum sometimes."_

_"Do you think the Grand Nagus," he paused with a shudder. "Not my brother! The last Grand Nagus, Zek. Do you think he spent all his time in office on Ferenginar? No, the man… Well, he used to be out and about all the time, now he barely leaves his bedroom, but that's only because of his age, and the herniated disc." He cringed, "But I'd rather not get into that. The man used to travel the quadrant, checking on business interests, networking with business contacts, cheating millions. Trust me, you wouldn't be the first or last person to hold and attend meetings via subspace. Hypercommuting is the only way to get things done these days! You could always plan to come back to Bajor as needed for important events. It's not like you'll shuttle through the wormhole and vanish. The universe is getting smaller every day."_

_He bared a wrist to her, "You've always worked better with him around, Colonel. Even the lowly bartender can see that. And while he did his job very well, he was a mess before you started seeing each other."_

_"Quark, none of this is any of your business. Please, just leave," she finally spat. Her jaw was clenched and she looked like she was at the edge of something. Her eyes were open just a hairsbreadth too wide._

_He held up both his wrists, to beg her pardon, "Just thought you could use some spring wine." _

_He drained his glass and set it down. As he left he called casually over his shoulder, "Think about what I said. It's the one life that you've got."_

_The wine will probably be on my tab, she thought, and poured herself another glass. But she couldn't shut out his words._

She limped as she spiraled down, the muscle pull hurt enough to change her stride. _Damn little troll_, she thought, a smile tugging the corners of her lips. Figured he would be the one to make sense. And so, a handful of arrangements and months later she had left the station in a borrowed shuttle, which, presumably, was still in orbit around the changeling home world, or hopefully, on autopilot back through the wormhole.

She had been willing to give her life to be with him, said as much, and now she had, and she had a different one in its stead. Still, she very possibly had a hundred lifetimes to help her own people now, to help Odo right the wrongs of his. She picked up her limp to a hobbled jog, exhausted, but finding a second wind. She was suddenly very aware of how long it had been since she had left, and how Odo's mind tended to wander. By the time she came to his living quarters, she was floating in endorphins. The ankle would be horrible tomorrow, but she barely felt it at the moment. She had slowed and stretched again a few levels up. The door creaked softly on its hinges when she opened it.

He had been looking out on the small, livening, walled city, but turned toward the sound.

She hesitated for a moment in the doorway and then said in a rush, "Don't you dare think that this has anything to do with you." She pulled the door shut behind her and crossed the room to him. "I love you." She stood on her toes and brushed her lips against his, "So much."

"That will not change. Nor will the fact that I want to spend the rest of my now significantly longer life with you. I would choose that again in a heartbeat." She held him tightly. Several minutes passed. She sighed deeply and met his eyes. "It's a lot to take in. Bit of a life change. I'll get there."

His arms wrapped around her waist. He leaned into her.

"I'm so sorry Nerys."

"No!" Her head snapped up, eyes burning. "No, I wished for this Odo. Prayed to the Prophets to be able to do this for you, to give you this. Please, don't be sorry for what happened."

He scratched slow, comforting circles on her back, "It must have been disconcerting to shift like that, not knowing you could, not knowing what was happening. And to begin immediately to link when you have no frame of reference for what you were experiencing."

She nodded against him, "Overwhelming. But then most of my life has been overwhelming. I'm nothing if not adaptable." She gave him a half smile and took his hand. "C'mon I know you can't smell, but I can, and I need a shower." She led him into the interior of the apartment, limping enough for him to notice. He stayed silent, resisting the likely urge to tend it. She sat on one hip on the tub edge, taking her weight off the tender ankle as she turned the water on. Once it warmed and she had peeled off her sweat soaked clothes, she caught his wrist and pulled him in with her. He almost grinned, but looked into her eyes and lost it to a look of concern. She knew he had gotten to the point, before he left, where he could read even her withholdings well, and that had not changed. She shook her head at the guess he hazarded, "You are more than terrified, but you don't really want to tell me that. Don't want me to think you are terrified of me."

She only hesitated for half a breath before she spoke, "Not exactly. I know you will keep me safe, and I am used to who you are and all that it means; I love you more because of it. Nothing about you frightens me. But you existing as you are and me turning from carbon into a silicon-based gel? From where I stand, it's a bit different. It will take some time for me to get used to it."


	11. Part One: Chapter 11

~Odo~

But that wasn't all of it either. He could tell that much from the tension of her muscles as he smoothed soap across her back, over the fading bruises of her ribcage and abdomen. He did what he usually did. He gave her the silence to fill and after a time, she did, "I told them I would give anything to see you again. I meant it. But, I don't know if I would have willingly given up my biological makeup, knowing that everyone I love will fall away from me, suffer and die, while I live on. And what if you are killed? Then I have no one, and am faced with eternity."

She sighed again. He read the tension, she was torn between not wanting to hurt him, but not wanting to lie either. She let the water run over her. "I can't regret this. I won't. I love you too much. It will just take me some time to get used to the scope of things." He held her, pressing himself to her back, resting his head against hers. She turned off the water and soon found herself being toweled dry by mimetic fabric. When Odo finished he simply reformed his hands and the water they held as towels slipped through his fingers and down the drain. It made her smile. "You've never done that before."

"Full of tricks," he flared his fingers; jazz hands, Vic had called it.

Her smile widened and she looked up at him. "Will you teach me? To turn into different things, if I can."

He fought the urge to apologize again, and instead just nodded, "Of course."

She nodded and the smile turned private, shyly sensual, and led him, padding silently on bare feet, to the bed. He let his eyes fall and rest of the pale swell of her bottom, the dimples that framed the base of her spine. He had always loved the generous curve of her hips and remembered forcing himself, on many occasions, to avert his eyes as she walked away.

~Kira~

She slid between the sheets and opened her arms to him. He settled against her breasts, resting his cheek over her heart. She wrapped her arms around his head and shoulders and stroked his hair. She secretly enjoyed how much bigger than her he was; she always felt small in a safe way when they held one another like this. He was one of few people she didn't mind feeling smaller than.

"I think I want to try again. Will you let me shift on my own? I want to get used to the feel of it before I link with you."

He lifted his head to catch her eyes. "Are you sure Nerys?"

She nodded. He kissed the place his cheek had rested, and she could feel the beating of her heart hasten. Her voice seemed loud in her ears, though she spoke softly, "I don't know how to start."

He moved his body up hers, so that they rested eye to eye. "Do you remember what you were thinking when you lost cohesion the first time?"

She paused, looked into the distance, reviewing the contents of her mind. "I wanted to link with you."

He nodded. "Then treat it as if you are meditating. Still your mind, close out the nerves and fear, think of releasing yourself into it. It will be cool and electric. At least, that is what it is like for me."

She searched his eyes, then, letting her heart show on her face, as she humbled. She was so grateful to be able to give this to him, experience it with him. She let herself forget her fear that it was all some sort of plot against him by the changelings. That bone could be dug up to be gnawed on at a later date. Tonight she would look on it as a gift, and wanted him to feel her love and her gratitude that she could share herself with him in the one way her biology had prevented her. She would trust him to help her find herself again.

It did not take her long to discover how to shift. Though, again when it began, she gasped and clutched at him. Her extremities ran amber first, and slowly she relaxed enough to release control of her abdomen and began shimmering into a gelatinous column. There came a point when the shapeshifting neared her lungs that reminded her of something. Something she hadn't experienced. She saw herself encased in rock, underground, barely breathing, unable to move. And she felt panic, but not her own. She felt it, recognized it as Odo's panic; looked down and saw clay colored hands adjusting resonance frequencies, growing frantic and frustrated and realized they were hers, but not hers. She let go of the panic, the memory, and found herself floating. She had a sense of Odo near her. The normal background static of her body was silent. She felt the rumble of her name more than heard it, moved to the sound, surprised that she could. He touched her, and even in this foreign state, she stirred, her substance rippling. It felt strange, being formless; but calm and almost comforting. She took a moment to feel the contours of the bed beneath her, and then moved into Odo's lap and up his chest to curl around him and brush him with clear amber tentacles. They were exploratory motions, testing the dimensions of her new form, experiencing his solidity from an entirely different angle of sensation. She charted the topography of his ribs, shoulders, the textures of cloth and flesh and bone and hair he created. She took particular delight in the swells and troughs of knuckles and fingers. The chitinous fingernails, rimmed by cuticles. She spent a long time feeling his hands. She was aware of the rumble of his voice. She was too focused on his body to take in his words, but his tone was tender, a soft rasp, lifting to a lilting growl. She meandered across the fine details of the weave of fabric he simulated. Then with what would have been an evil grin had she been solid, teased a series of feather light touches up his abdomen and across his throat. His resulting groan rumbled through her. The sensation was incredibly erotic. And suddenly instincts that she did not possess in her carbon based state seemed to click on in her consciousness. The way she touched him changed, the way her substance hummed against him; she wanted him to join her, felt the need strongly. This is what it was for him to meet his people, she thought. Only he had been feeling the need for years and years. For his entire life.

"Nerys are you sure?" She felt the words more than heard them.

Her touches did not stop or slow, but continued to draw very humanoid gasps from the changeling. He finally couldn't bear it and let go of his solid self, resettling into his natural form.

It was overwhelming. She couldn't make sense of most of what was happening or what she was feeling and experiencing. She had no frame of reference for any of it, no way to process the suddenly acquired information. But beyond the overload, it was the most strangely erotic experience that she had ever had. To slide against him at first and then slowly intermingle. To feel him like this; free, and eager, and obviously overjoyed, it thrilled her. She sank into the pleasure of it, exploring him as she never had.

She woke up solid, replete with the entire memory that she had begun to experience when she first lost cohesion briefly as they made love. He, amazingly, had not yet stirred from where he pooled at the center of the mattress. She resisted the urge to trail her fingers through him, not wanting to wake him. Instead she rose carefully and went to the window, watching the swirling storm clouds open and bloom obscuring the vastness of the plains and mountains. Her bare skin prickled in to cool morning air, but she ignored it, crossed her arms over pebbled nipples. Ignored, too, the subtle throb of her ankle, which felt, surprisingly better than it should.

She played the events over in her mind. Chasing the fugitive to that moon. The tunnels, and then when her original memory stopped, she followed his through to finding her doppelganger trapped in the crystal. Felt his panic, the depth of his love, even then. Remembered the pain of the cave in; rocks hurling into his substance and the cold flume of terror that she would die. The story of his name. He had never told her. The story brought her back to the present. She watched the wind beat the clouds and rain in waves and wept, quietly with the wrenching realization that his name was from the Cardassian phrase for 'nothing.' She remembered the agony in his admission of love, and the sinking disappointment when her changeling double professed her love in return. He had known then it wasn't true.

There were other memories, too; some pleasant, most others not. The lab, being probed, prodded, explored, slowly tortured for the sake of science. The sense of shame and the stronger sense of defiance that grew in him over the years. The deeply satisfying, all encompassing pleasure and wonder of his first time entering a link with another of his kind. The grief laced thrill of flying through the promenade after losing the baby changeling, the guilt associated with it. The radiance of her hair in the low station light the first time he met her. How she impressed him, fascinated him from the start.

With a gasp, and a tingling that flushed her entire body, she realized she now shared his memory of and the sensations and emotions he felt during their first kiss on the promenade and the first time they made love, later that night. She had known the link would mean an increased level of intimacy, a sharing of memories and experiences, but she hadn't realized that she would feel his pleasure as he touched her, how sensuous her skin had felt under his fingers, the scars firmer and slick, the fine hairs like down. She had not expected to hear the quiet, intense sounds she made through his ears, the way he felt when he slid inside of her, how much joy it brought him to be able to express his love for her, to freely touch her, watch her, kiss her, share his arousal, his desire. The wrenching conflict he felt when he chose her love over a life with his own people, when he left Laas to his own devices, to explore the universe unaccompanied, nearly brought her to her knees. She didn't want to cry, was tired of crying, but couldn't stop the tears from coming. They fell silently, unmarked, while she stood there, remembering his memories, watching wind blowing waves like water over the grasses. It was a gift to know him like this, frightening and laden with possibility. It came with a price, but she would face that one day at a time. She smiled, for it occurred to her that he would know what she felt too, would never have to guess at or doubt the breadth of her love for him. He would have view into many a fevered daydream, but would know also the little things she kept from him. How things were for her after he left, what she felt when she was with her other lovers, her long sleepless nights. Oh, Prophets, her time during the first occupation; the dark things she had done, that had been done to her. Things that she had to live with and so often tried to forget. He would know how alien but familiar it all seemed at first when he was himself with her, but he would know, too, how quickly it became anticipated, loved. She turned to look at his pooled sleeping form. But of course he was awake, solid, and watching her.

"I hope you didn't take anymore runs dressed like that," he raised a hairless eyebrow. She laughed and rubbed her bare belly, wiped tears from her breasts. "And give them a lesson in Bajoran anatomy, no. I will save that for after we get back from the Aching Mountains. They give me strange enough looks as it is. He raised a brow and pointedly brushed his thumb over her tear stained cheek. She nodded accepting his concern, offered no explanation, assuming he had a fair enough idea, and would know shortly anyway. Instead she slid next to him and kissed his forehead, his cheekbone, the side of his chin, his throat. "I can feel what you felt," she whispered against his lips, her eyes clouded over with desire. She held his hand, and then pressed it into the velvet heat between her thighs. "How it felt to touch me, to make love to me that first time." She parted his lips with her tongue. Searched his out. Savored the kiss, and deepened it until they were both groaning. She pulled away, long enough to ask, "Can you feel what I felt when you kissed me on the Promenade?"

He nodded and nipped her lower lip, kissing her lightly.

"Can you remember how I felt when you danced with me, where I felt it when you held me close at Vic's that first time?"

He burred a wordless sound, feathering light kisses along her lips and jaw. She wrapped her hand around his erection and slowly stroked it. She adjusted her shoulders and slid a muscled leg over his hips, teasing her slick vulva with the tip of his penis, rending a thick groan from him.

"Do you remember how I felt when I took you inside me the first time?" She whispered it against his jaw, but the words drew him to turn his head and cover her mouth with his. Her body sang with the pleasure of that kiss, poured into it all of her desires, and all the remembrances of his.


	12. Part One: Chapter 12

~Odo~

He entered her slowly, enjoying how she egged him on, tried to entice him into quenching her need. He smiled, and with practiced patience built a swelling of ecstasy between them. He knew just when to surprise her body with a deep thrust, or a short series of shallow fast ones. She clung to him, gasping, as though her life depended on this release, which, in some ways for both of them it did.

He kissed her again and burying himself deep inside of her, whispered, "Nerys open your eyes for me."

She did as he asked, forcing her eyes open, and he could see only the bottomless brown of her searching gaze, drank in her pleasure. He rolled on top of her and turned semisolid, but transparent. She writhed against him, losing herself in the visceral responses of her body. Even before the thrumming of her orgasm ceased, he could feel his building. She dipped and swirled her fingers through him, cupping and holding him to her. He felt her begin to change, felt the sensations shifting, until she was sliding over him, into him, joining him in his pleasure, adding to it as only the Link could.

They spent the better part of the morning swimming in each other, exploring this new aspect of their connection. They stopped long enough for him to postpone a morning meeting with the Rahnu. Sometime later, Nerys lay prone, running her fingers lazily through the pool of him. "You know," she hummed into his substance. "I'm going to give you a bad reputation if you aren't careful. After this morning you are officially no longer allowed to cancel meetings on my account."

She snorted, and began to laugh. Which sussed him out of the relaxed puddle in which he rested. He solidified beneath her with a slightly indignant look on his face and she scooted to accommodate him on the bed. She gave him a quick kiss and sat up. "I was just thinking about the voles."

He looked at her with a puzzled expression for a moment. Then he remembered. It was a morning soon after they had become intimate. It was when he still went to his quarters at night to regenerate.

_"Come back to me when you're done," she had murmured sleepily to him as he held her. So he had keyed his way back in and perched on the lip of the oval viewport, transfixed by the vulnerable rise and fall of her chest. He had not wanted to join her on the bed without her permission._

_An hour or so later she stretched and drew a sleepy whistling breath. He smiled at the face she made, and the tiny strange sound that squawked from the back of her throat while she stretched. _

_"Good Morning Major," he had burred when she opened her eyes. It made her smile sleepily and close them again._

_"Lay down with me, Constable." She rolled to her side and smoothed the empty spot. He slid into the bed, his brown uniform melting into smooth flesh, and found that the echo of her warmth still clung to the sheets. She sighed happily and fit herself against him. Her head pillowed on his chest, leg hooked over his thigh, her hand reached over her head to lazily palm the planes of his face, exploring his contours. "Hmmm, have a nice rest?"_

_He kissed her hand when it wandered too close to his mouth, and rumbled beneath her, "Mmmhmmm. You?"_

_"Tossed and turned. Your fault, too. Kept dreaming about having my way with you," she trailed her fingertips down his throat and across the supple expanse of his abdomen. His substance stirred beneath her soft touches. _

_"Is this all humanoid couples do? I mean, not that it isn't," he slid himself down the mattress a little to kiss her gently, "wonderful."_

_Nerys squinted her eyes in a broad smile. "Only at the beginning."_

_He frowned, "You mean we won't..."_

_She registered his implication and shook her head, "No, no! Oh, Prophets, no, we will absolutely continue to make love. I meant humanoids only go at it like voles in the beginning."_

_Another look of confusion, "Voles?"_

_She laughed and kissed his cheek. He turned his head and caught her mouth and the kissed turned hungry. When they broke apart, she had lost her breath. He seemed to draw immense satisfaction in rendering her breathless. "Definitely like voles," she whispered and when his expression of confusion didn't lift she raised her eyebrows, "Constantly mating." He froze for a moment comprehending and then smiled. "I see. Well, then we had best be true to humanoid nature," he growled and hooked his fingers behind her knee, pulling her hips tighter against him. Her breath caught in her throat and she ground against him. "Prophets, Odo, I'm not going to be able to walk." He stopped abruptly, with a deeply concerned look on his face._

_"Another expression! I'll be able to walk, but I may be walking a little funny. It's been a while since I've had this much attention." Then his mouth found her nipple and she fell silent, lost in his ministrations._

He chuckled, "Voles have the right idea, but nowhere near the same amount of responsibility. We should officially get ready. And this time, separate showers. Faster, I think."

She smiled and pushed herself up off the low bed. She turned and stopped in her tracks halfway to the door.

He waited a beat before calling to her, "Nerys?"

She didn't respond at first. After a moment she shook her head. He was out of the bed and at her elbow when she finally found her words. "Sorry, I'm fine. I was just… You never told me you used to shift into a vole. One of your memories just hit me." She looked at him a slight frown on her face, "It was so real, I could feel the deck plating under my … under your paws. It was almost as if this room disappeared for a moment.

Odo cocked his head, "Why don't you take it easy, Nerys. I know you want to be involved, but neither of us knows what all of this means for you."

She began to protest, but he kept talking, "I know, you're all right, but you won't miss too much today. We had the official team briefing, now we are just waiting for minor repair to be made on the transport that will take us to the landing site and for the break in the storm.

Her lips pressed into a thin line as she considered what had just happened. She finally nodded, "You're right. I suppose having this happen midway up the climbing wall would be inadvisable."

He chuffed, but he suspected his eyes betrayed his concern.

"Hey," she said. "I'm ok. It was just a memory."

His concern did not lessen, but after searching her face, he gave a little nod. "Alright, I suppose, then I should take the first shower."

~Kira~

Kira stayed in the apartment for an hour and a half with no other episodes, so, she left to walk the Arch to take in the sight and shops and get some exercise. Her ankle felt fine, her bruises, the chaffing, her battered fingertips, all healed. The storm raged beyond the glittering containment field. Large viewing panels in most of the public areas gave the populace sweeping views of the vast countryside. She broke into a slow jog when the walkway cleared of those on their midday break. Rounding a corner she caught sight of a woman wearing a head wrap the same carmine color of her uniform and suddenly was watching herself heatedly arguing with Commander Sisko early in his tenure at Deep Space Nine. She could feel the chair Odo sat on, could discern minute details, including the obvious visibility of the dimples at the base of her spine through said carmine colored uniform, which, amusingly enough, Odo had surreptitiously glanced at three times during the course of the memory. The scene dissolved back into the crisp lines of the Arch's central spiral, and the storm curtailed view outside. The memories returned gradually over the next hour, brought on by sounds, shapes, textures of things. She had touched a glass vase in a storefront and gripped it, caught in the sensation of being poured from a glass beaker to a mildly electrified plate and then back, after a series of incredibly uncomfortable shocks. It was like a waking, moving dream, as though life stopped for the duration of the memory, and then it faded and reality resumed. The second time it happened, she turned back to his apartment, unnerved by the fact that she could not control the lapses into flashback. She experienced a handful more on her return walk. Some of them were short and relatively benign. An awkward conversation with Ambassador Troi. Sitting in the security office debriefing with one of his security staff. Practicing for his short-lived role as baseball umpire. A few were genuinely upsetting; a night he had never told her about - after he had been forced by his people into solid human form, when he came dangerously close to ending his own life, and an older memory of the shame of giving a show for a Cardassian audience during the Occupation. She made it back to his apartment before the seventh memory, which made her physically ill. Again, something he had never told her about; being held captive and tortured by the Obsidian order, by Garak. She felt everything he felt, experienced it as he had. When she came back to reality, she was curled in a fetal ball in a pool of her own vomit. She didn't have time to clean it up before the room morphed into the quarters they had shared on the Defiant and she could feel his body crumbling in on itself rotting away with the effects of the virus that nearly killed his people. She managed to get to the low couch before the next onslaught. After that, she lost count. One bled into another until they began layering over each other. Mundane things like watching over goings on at Quark's or walking past certain shops on the promenade laced over more eventful memories of fights he'd broken up, or the pleasing clicking together of clues and informants in crimes he had solved, the feelings of pride and worth he experienced when he spoke with her and she treated him as a person, an equal. Through it all she gripped onto the couch, for the room felt as though it was spinning. The memories were so real and piled on top of each other she lost track of whether she was conscious or unconscious. She only knew she held on tightly to the couch. Eventually the inundation diminished and the memories were clearer, stood alone.

She woke in darkness. Her gut sank for the split second it took to register Odo's arms around her. In that portion of a moment, she thought she was alone on the station a galaxy away. She turned in his arms and clung tightly to him. It was too much. There was no going back now; her choice was made weeks earlier, parsecs away, on the Changeling homeworld. Still, it was too much. She held her breath against him.

"Nerys?"

"Hold me tighter, alright?" It was all she could bring herself to say. She was quiet in his arms for long enough, she assumed, to worry him. But she was too tired to talk. Didn't have words, anyway, to express what she experienced, what she felt. She would have likened its effectiveness to Cardassian torture techniques for making her feel out of control and frightened. But it wasn't torture, it was him in his purest and most unadulterated of ways. _It can't be this bad every time, it has to get better_, she thought over and over, trying for his sake to avoid registering what she was feeling, and aware, even as she did, that he would know the next time they joined. And she would link with him again, she knew that much. It would get better. _I'll adapt._ _I have to_.

"Nerys?"

"Please, Odo, just hold me," her voice was a strained whisper. She gripped him tightly and prayed to the Prophets for guidance and wisdom, strength and patience. Fell asleep clinging to him.

The next day she rose before he was done regenerating. "I'll be back later," she whispered against his substance.

Attacking the climbing wall with a vengeance, she poured everything she had into it, and still it took her five exhausting tries before she made it to the top. The memories still drifted into her conscious mind from time to time, but it was no longer like existing in the memory. She took great solace in this alone; for in the thick of reliving some particularly degrading events he experienced on the station during Cardassian Occupation, it occurred to her that it might not get better. It seemed that she had to experience them to imprint them into her actual memory, but after that she could access them at will, as she would any of her memories. Even still, she climbed until she was exhausted. Until the only thing in her mind was the screaming of her muscles and the rushing air sucking in and out of her lungs.

He was looking out the window into the patterns the wind and rain made on the glass when she returned. He cocked his head when she entered but didn't turn.

She wanted to go to him. To lay her palms flat on his back and let the rise and fall of her breath comfort them both. She wanted to kiss the stretch of spine between her hands and rest her cheek there.

"I love you so much," she finally whispered, anchored to her place near the door. She wasn't at all sure who she was trying to reassure.

"I know," he choked. She had a fair idea of the panic he was feeling. She chewed on her lip, heart beating loudly in her ears. She knew he could feel it, would have nearly gauged her blood pressure even from across the room. She wanted to console him, but she couldn't.

"I'm scared, Odo." The admission surprised her. She hadn't wanted to tell him that. "It was … more than I could handle."

He could only nod his head. She knew he was blaming himself, trying to find a way for her to avoid the pain of this strange, inchoate rebirth. She finally went to him. Stood next to him at the window. He kept his eyes trained to the goings on in the city below. The sun was sinking in the west, blooming underneath the sweeping storm clouds, drawing brief, long shadows from the buildings below. Her fingers strayed, almost of their own accord to brush over his jaw. He turned to the touch, and she cupped his face with her hand, stood on her toes to kiss him. It seemed to root them both. Nerys planted her feet to lean into him more soundly. When they broke apart he kissed her forehead before resting his chin on her head.

"It will get better."

"And if it doesn't?" he rasped.

"It will get better or I will get used to it. One of the two," she said in an overly convincing tone. She knew he saw through it by the way he pulled away and looked at her for a long time after she finished her sentence. They leaned into the weight each other and watched the sun set below the storm clouds.

* * *

**A/N: And thus concludes part one. What did you think? Feedback and reviews gratefully appreciated.**


	13. Part Two: Chapter 1

_Part Two_

_My name is Kira Nerys. I am a daughter of Bajor, child of the Prophets, and I am alive._

_I was born to a conquered people, to starvation and sickness. I learned about death camps, work camps, rape, threat and intimidation before I learned to read. My destiny, my life, the lives of my people lay trapped in the hands of aliens in offices parsecs away. _

_I grew up in resistance cells, determined to fight, focused on a freedom many of my comrades did not live to see. My body became a weapon; all hardness and honed edges. I fought until I couldn't go on and then I fought harder. I killed many. Many deserved to die. More than I'd like to admit to myself probably didn't. The freedom we fought for eluded us for so long, and all the while those around me died, were torn from my hands by Cardassian phaser rifles and concussion grenades. I have lost everything that is dear to me. One by one the lives of my friends and family were extinguished. More than a few died__ because of their connection to me. Things happened to me, because of me, that I don't speak of, that I will never speak of. Still, I survived. For whatever reason, the Prophets saw fit for me to live. And live I did. All wounds heal after a time, whether they scar or not, but none ever truly go away._

_I should have grown used to it. Accustomed to the pit that opens up in the bottom of my stomach - to the endless gnawing, endless grief, to the way memories can be a comforting caress or a gutting knife. I put up a good, strong front when I left him on his homeworld, when I watched him sink into the sickly sea of his people. Told myself I wouldn't look back after I watched with pride as he healed them, as the Link turned back to healthy, vibrant, rippling amber. I waited until I had beamed back onto the runabout. And once there, the sobbing wracked me. I put the shuttle on autopilot back to the wormhole and wept like I have never known myself to weep. It was not the first time I had lost him. I began losing him long before. Before I ever had him, perhaps._

_ I hadn't realized it would be different with him. Thought I could just let him go. Thought it would be as though he were dead and gone. I would mourn the loss of him and move on. I understood that, had lived it more than once. Those of us left behind know these things. Losing lovers hurt, but I lived. And I loved him, truly and deeply. It was why I had to let him go._

_Only problem was, with him, the pain didn't lessen. His image in my mind never faded. Neither did the way it pulled at my heart when I closed my eyes and felt his arms around me. Felt them so strongly it surprised me to open my eyes and find myself alone. Years passed, but I felt it like I did the moment I left him, the moment I let him leave me._

_When I saw him again, felt him again, it was like taking a breath for the first time in five endless years. The aching hollow of the time in between was gone. _

_I have never been particularly trusting of others, of aliens. Never saw myself with anyone but a fellow Bajoran. But even from the start, though I knew he was a shapeshifter, he never felt alien to me. Different, but never alien. There was always something familiar about him. He is one of the few people in the universe that I have respected from the moment we met. Well, from ten seconds after the moment we met. And now he has grown as fundamental to me as eating and sleeping, as breath. _

_I had been praying to the Prophets for guidance that day, long ago, when the Cardassians still clung to Bajor, to the station, though even then their fingers weakened. I had killed a man. It was not the job I had been sent by the Resistance to do. I felt that man's life bleed away from him hours earlier, had told myself it couldn't be helped. I prayed to the Prophets to help me to survive my situation, the occupation, while I picked over my meal. I looked up and saw him. I didn't know until much later, years, in fact, that he had been the answer to that prayer. Now another prayer has been answered and I don't know what to do._

_He is so fundamentally different from me on a biological level, but it is clear, now more than ever, that we are two pieces of a whole. A mismatched matched pair. I wanted so much to be able to be all that he needs. I never stopped to consider what it would mean for me, for both of us, were this prayer to be granted. I should know better that to ask for selfish things to be made manifest. When it came to him, I could not see beyond wanting to give him the link that he biologically needed. It made my stomach tighten back on the station years ago when he would hold me and insist that it did not matter. I could feel how much it did. I could feel it just under his skin when he touched me._

_And now, I have what I thought I wanted. And it is amazing and terrible. I never considered how different we are, and what it would be like for me. I never considered that it would be physically painful. That it would overwhelm me like few things have. But what can I do? I cannot help but love him. I have tried being away from him. It didn't work. We will survive this. Together. I hope. We have to._

~Odo~

Her silence gnawed at him. She had been quiet all evening. They lay spooning in bed for a long time before she finally drifted to sleep. He held tightly to his humanoid shape and slid his palm slowly up and down the grain of her arm. Examining the texture of her skin on a subatomic level was second nature; he could not help but do it whether he was in his natural form or not. And linking with her. Linking with her had been the most tantalizing, satisfying experience he had ever had. He knew aspects of it would be hard; quite a few memories had disturbed him, atrocities committed against her by violent, slathering cardassians, intimates details of experiences with other lovers, violent moments of darkness. Still, it meant knowing her on a level that was more private, more intimate than anything he had experienced. To create a Link of only two, and one of love, not biological necessity, bore for him the connection he foolishly sought when he bedded the Founder in solid form. An intimacy the likes of which had not been firsthand experienced by any in the Great Link. With Nerys, it was lovemaking as much as it was information and experience sharing. He had no words to flesh out the breadth of what he felt when he joined with her – only that he had been wrong when he thought that nothing could compare to the feeling of coming home he had experienced joining the Great Link for the first time.

Yet the very action that brought him this entirely new feeling, new depth of experience, resulted in returning from his daily duties to find Nerys huddled in a ball on the low sofa, nearly catatonic. The fact that she hadn't cleaned up her vomit, or made it to the toilet or sink for that matter sent a chill through him. For it meant she hadn't been physically able.

Everything about it made him churn. The worst was the horror, the absolute selfish fear that she wouldn't want to link with him again.

He saw through her every action. The silences, the way she avoided meeting his eyes, slipping away before his regeneration cycle was over. Working out until she was ready to drop from exhaustion. He could tell exactly how uncomfortable she was. She was doing everything to not feel what she was feeling. He had a good sense that she was in part trying to protect him from what he would learn the next time they linked, if they linked. He carefully disentangled himself from her, aching with things unspoken. He touched her hair for a moment and with a sigh, left the bedroom.


	14. Part Two: Chapter 2

~Kira Nerys~

A full bladder woke her. She stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom to relieve herself. It was only when she came back to bed that she realized Odo wasn't in it. It was the middle oft he night and she didn't have to know the time to know he would be in liquid form; she made a point to track when he needed to regenerate. That meant he wasn't out. She looked around the bedroom and then pushed through the partition to the living room. She finally found him pooled in the shadows of the far corner. She sighed and gathered an armful of bedding. Nesting herself around him, swaddled in blankets, she put her hand out and floated it on his surface.

"Don't be stupid. It isn't you I'm afraid of," she whispered into the pool of him. He rippled slightly, but made no other movement.

She dozed; slept fitfully, kept waking, disoriented and emotional and needing to feel him. When he uncurled and solidified out of his resting state she roused. Her hand slid to him, and she felt the reassuring pressure of his fingers easing through hers. She gripped tightly, and then drew his hand to her mouth. "Don't do that again," she whispered to the pads of his fingers before kissing them, with closed eyes. He pulled his hand away and her eyes opened in the still dark.

"What am I supposed to do Nerys?" he said somberly. "You can't even look at me. I … hurt you. I… You left yesterday morning before I could get up, stayed away all day. You were…" He paused for a long time. She couldn't see his expression in the predawn darkness, but she could feel his anguish in the air. He made a frustrated sound when he couldn't find the words and sighed. "You won't tell me what you're really feeling, so what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to think?"

She stood and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, turned to the window, looking at the lights in the walled in city below. It was cold to the touch and impossibly smooth when she pressed her palm to it. The wind of the storm made the whole structure hum. Odo was right about it singing. It was a beautiful, almost haunting sound. Soon, the light of dawn would filter through the storm clouds and paint life back into the soupy gray landscape.

"Odo, the truth is, I don't really know _what_ I am feeling. I only know that I don't want you to feel responsible. You did nothing. You didn't hurt me. I am just not designed to receive the Link as you are. I'm angry at the Changelings for doing all of this without really informing me of what it would entail. I'm scared that it won't get better. I'm not scared of you, or angry at you, nor do I want you to hide from me; I've slept alone enough these last five years. I love you. I want to give you what you need and I'm trying to work through what it all means for me, for us." Even turned away from him, she could feel his eyes boring through her.

"What does it mean for us?" the quiet emotion in his voice nearly broke her heart.

Sighing, she shook her head, knowing as much as she wanted to lie, she could only speak the truth about this. "I don't know."

She tilted her head, so that she could see his eyes, glinting in the dark shadows of his brow, then let her gaze fall back to the storm. "Look, I left Bajor wanting to see you, be with you. I needed to know you were ok. To see if there was room for me in your life. I wasn't expecting to become part changeling and find out I will probably outlive everyone else I love, and that the very act of linking with you turns me into a temporary hallucinating schizophrenic. All day yesterday, the main thought in my mind was how to keep you from feeling all that I am feeling now the next time we link. In truth, it has been terrifying. I am confused and upset, and I think I have a right to be. Still, it doesn't change how I love you, how I need you. Nothing could change that."

She turned to him with tired eyes, "Please. Come lay down with me in the bed, I barely slept."

When he didn't move, she held out a hand to him and he reached for her automatically. Again she raised his hand to her lips, and this time he didn't pull it away when she kissed his fingertips. "It has been unbelievably beautiful too. I don't mean to downplay what we've shared. Knowing you like this… "

He followed her onto the bed, where the nearness of him dropped her voice back to a whisper, "I saw what it was for you the first time you linked with the Founder on your homeworld; I was there, I remember, but to feel it, what you felt... To experience the joining and magnifying of our pleasure in the way that is most natural for you, it …"

She shivered, and her nipples pressed taut points into his side. "I never imagined it could be so," she trailed off, resting her cheek against him.

"Intense?" the sensuality in his voice was muted. She knew he was holding himself back, was grateful for it. For even the pleasure was so much that it was akin to pain.

"Intense." She sighed and relaxed against him.

She drifted into a honeyed half sleep when a shadow of agony gripped her. Gasping, she sat up, feeling herself, checking to see that she was all there.

"I couldn't come apart, I needed to. _You_ needed to. Oh Prophets," she choked when she had lain back down against him. "You needed to and he wouldn't let you. How could you fail to mention that little jewel of insight. Garak TORTURED you when you were being held by the Obsidian Order?!"

"We came to an understanding," Odo said in a hush. "And because I knew you would kill him if you found out."

He was right, off course. She could also feel the kinship between him and the cardassian that welled from the experience; Odo found his way to forgive him, respect him. She didn't like it, but she understood.

Still. "I felt everything you felt Odo. Everything. This was just a memory, but after we linked, I felt it. All of it. You almost died."

She let out a ragged sigh, held back some words that would have been spit out in hurt. She rubbed her hands over her face, pausing to choose her spoken words carefully, "There is just so much I'm trying to wrap my mind around."

He cradled her to his chest. "I was trying to keep the worst of it from you this first time. I wanted it to be about the pleasure mingling with one another can offer. Problem was I couldn't stop what I received from you, and that became distracting. More distracting, it seems, than I thought."

She moved so that they lay eye to eye. "And how is that for you? To suddenly know my secrets, to feel what I felt?"

The stricken look on his face confirmed that he had experienced enough. He kissed her forehead and his eyes softened. He seemed to search for words for a long time, "I've never experienced the Link as I do with you. Never with love. It was a personal intimacy, sometimes like an invasion, but never as it is with you. It does make certain memories more uncomfortable. There are things I wish I could avoid experiencing. Can you understand now why no Changeling harms another? How that pain and loss becomes part of you? Now I am part of your pain, your joy, your existence and you are part of mine. I can separate out the hardships of your past, because I was not the cause. I still have to feel it, because it is a piece of you. Doesn't mean it doesn't make me ache in ways I didn't know I could, but it helps me understand you. There is nothing either of us can do to change the past. But right now, this is hurting you so much. That is what bothers me. I never want to hurt you Nerys."

She straddled him; searched his eyes for a long time before leaning down and kissing him so deeply they were both left gasping when she was done, "You, my dear Constable, are not hurting me. My body is processing what is happening to it in a way that is unbelievable disconcerting. Reliving your experiences is like routing my emotions through a phase inverter. But that does not mean you yourself are causing me pain. I have only been part changeling and aware of it for three days. Odo, you need to give me time to react to all of this before you jump to conclusions and…" She stopped abruptly and rolled away from him. She knew he saw the change in her face before she turned from him.

His voice was all gravel, no tone, "Jump to conclusions and...?"

She shook her head, "I was going to say 'and pull yourself out of my life again for what you think is my own good.'" She violently scrubbed away the few tears that slipped past her defenses. "I'm sorry; all you did was regenerate in the other room. It's just that I don't want you to feel that you need to do that, or anything, to protect me from you." She continued in a hoarse whisper. "Prophets, Odo, I need you so much. I … My life is so hollow without you."

"But?" he prompted quietly.

She swallowed and shook her head, willing herself to turn hard, like metal alloy, and not feel the words as she spoke them.

"What if it doesn't get better?" she breathed, staring at a nondescript spot on the floor. "What if that happens after every link?"

"We'll deal with that then," he rubbed her shoulders with strong, firm fingers. Problem was, she could never stay hard when he was near. She leaned into his hands.

"You tell me what you need Nerys," he rasped softly. "Tell me what to do."

The tone of his voice made something in her crumble away, opened up a place inside of her that was secret and silent and aching to stretch towards the sun. She was quiet longer than she intended to be. When she spoke, her voice did not shake, or catch. "I need you with me. Not pitying me, or deciding for me what I can or can't handle. I need you to know that I love you. I need to be able to tell you I am afraid and not have you jump to conclusions. I need time."

She relaxed under his knowing, dexterous touch. "And I need you to keep doing that; I cannot tell you how sore I am from climbing."

He let out a sort of relieved chuckled and set to work kneading out tense muscles. She groaned beneath his ministrations and stretched out on the bed. It had been five years, but she had now had first hand experience with his memory, which was eidetic In a most comprehensive way. He remembered precisely what she liked, the exact pressure, the tender pressure points, where to rub, where to knead, where to use the point of his elbow. It had been the same making love to him; as though no time had passed. He leaned down to kiss the back of her neck, resting a comforting amount of weight along the length of her back. She craned her head, to capture the kiss with her mouth. Despite the doubting chatter of her mind, she knew several things. He was both wound and balm_. This wound will never heal,_ she thought to herself; she didn't want it to. And despite her hesitancy, despite what it meant for what she thought of her self, her path, her life - she wanted him. On a spiritual level, emotional level, and a very visceral physical level, she wanted him. So she ignored her reservations and let her body react. Let her back arch, pushing the thick of her bottom against his groin, pressing her sensitive breasts into the bed, shoulders back, reaching to deepen the kiss. He responded instinctually at first, returning the increased pressure of her body with his own. He pulled away, then, his eyes wild, confused. "Nerys?"

She rolled over and up to her knees. Cocked her head as she remembered. Cupped his face in her hands. "You were always so worried that I wouldn't, couldn't love you with the same depth of feeling you had for me…" She trailed off, searching his eyes, before kissing him again, fiercely, if slightly awkwardly. "When have you ever known me to run away from what I'm afraid of?" She whispered, made sure he could see it was true, see that she had made up her mind. "You busy later today? Any meetings?"

He shook his head no.

"Good, because I will feel safer going through all this with you to watch over me."

"Are you sure you don't want to wait a few…"

She pushed him back onto the bed, straddled him again. Kissed him until they were both panting and senseless.

"I've waited five years; I am tired of waiting," she gasped. "I know you'll keep me safe."


	15. Part Two: Chapter 3

"The last week has been intense." Kira folded her legs beneath herself and speared a chunk of fruit from the small bowl in her hands. She popped it in her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully.

"Sounds like it." Ezri was chirping with barely restrained excitement on the small view screen in Odo's apartment. Jadzia had never been quite so bubbly. It was different, but endearing. It was hard not to like the young Trill, despite the pain she still felt over losing her dear friend. "Has it gotten any better?"

The Bajoran woman nodded. "At first it was almost unbearable, at least it was when the hallucinations…overlapped is the best way I can describe it. The link itself is fine. Fine, huh, listen to me. Linking with him," she looked away and smiled shyly, dropping her voice. "Is the most intense, erotic, sensual, even spiritual things I have ever experienced." She turned back to Ezri, chewed her lower lip for a moment, "It's the aftermath."

Odo had stayed with her at her request and held her tightly. She had squeezed her eyes shut and held as still as she could while her brain interpreted data that it was never meant to be able to receive. "Poor Odo is so conflicted about it. I can tell that he hates that it has been so difficult for me. He doesn't like to talk about the hours, after we've linked, of holding me, while I mewl and convulse. So far he's even managed to hide his feelings about it when we are linked. His apologies to me afterwards, well, it's obvious he blames himself. Worse still for him, is that I can tell even after he helps me through the aftermath of our links, that he is just longing for the next time we will mingle. Thank the Prophets that each time," she paused and laughed dryly, "I've dubbed them LRTs: Link Recovery Times. Thank the Prophets that the LRTs are slightly less intense each subsequent link.

"At least now I feel some control over what I chose to focus on in the hallucinations. It's closer to having four or five loud conversations going on in the same room. Not pleasant but not maddeningly overwhelming. I swear, Ezri, it's like the link is download time, but the information is encrypted so I only experience the transmission itself. Then the hallucinations are how my mind breaks the encryption codes and actually downloads the data. Once that passes, I can process what I experienced; they become and behave like my own memories. They bubble up at random inane times. I dream about them. I do something or glance at my body, and see myself through his eyes, as he remembers me."

She was introspective for a moment, knew what it felt like to grow feathers and fly. What is was to be the wind in trees, water over rocks. And she waited with him, burned with him, outside her door, while inside she was intimate with Shakaar for the first time. Sat with him, hopeless, in his security office while she kissed Bareil's mirror universe doppelganger, just outside its doors. Felt the strangely solid fluttery feeling in his gut when she sat on the couch at staff meetings. She never realized the utterly sensual line her body took when she leaned against its back, elbow up, sipping raktajino.

Ezri's voice brought her to the present, "So, how are you feeling about this?"

Kira shook her head. "Overwhelmed, overjoyed. Confused. Part of me feels tricked by the Changelings. But the final result is something I have wanted for us for a long time. I mean, I'm still Bajoran. But now I'm sort of a Changeling, too. I'm taking it a day at a time."

She stopped and sighed deeply. Ezri waited, silent for Kira to voice her thoughts, "It scares me that I could give myself up like that for him. Now that I have him again, now that I hear his voice, feel him next to me at night, it scares me even more. I can't walk away. He is my home, Ezri. I just … I know I will never be able to walk away from this. The thought of losing him again…" She trailed off.

Ezri nodded, "Is probably pretty terrifying considering that you essentially gave up the life you expected to lead to join him. Trust me, I know how jarring that can be."

Kira stared empathetically at the young Trill, who had become the unanticipated host to the Dax symbiont a little over six years earlier. She vividly recalled how much the young woman had doubted herself and her abilities. How terrified she had been, out of control. The Bajoran woman shook her head. "You really were the perfect person to talk to about this. I didn't even think about when you received Dax. I remember what a challenge it was at first."

"And now I can't imagine my life any other way. I am such a richer, stronger person for it, Nerys. Already, I can see that you are, too."

"I'd be lying if I didn't have some serious doubts after shifting the first time and coping with the aftereffects of linking. Then he'll say something to me, Prophets, Ezri, all he has to do is look at me, and it seems impossible that I could have survived five long years waking up without him beside me. I keep worrying that I will lose myself in this love, but so far, being with him again has just made me feel more like myself than I have in a long time."

"Tell me," Ezri pulled her knees under here chin, half a galaxy away.

"Well, it's like being on Bajor right after the Cardassians pulled out. Everything he is involved in is so familiar – we had to do it all on Bajor. The Dominion, the Founders, have pulled themselves out of trade entirely here, so new alliances are being formed left and right, planets are being healed, helping eachother. He is in contact with the leaders of I don't know how many worlds. Dozens. Helping them along, dealing with disputes, trade treaties, connecting them with neighboring worlds. And offering what help he can to the damaged worlds in the interim, while they wait for him to come and heal them. So many peoples in the quadrant are in need of help. He is encouraging those capable of sending aide and helping with reconstructions to do so. A new spatial landscape is being laid out, and Bajor will be present at that, through me, connected to that, through him. I was worried about my turning my back on my people, but with this comes immense opportunities to lay down the foundations of trade negotiation, to establish peace treaties. For our peoples to help each other. For the Alpha and the Gamma quadrants to heal from the grip of the Dominion, to heal eachother. He has built strong positive, peaceful relationships with the worlds he has healed so far, all of whom would be eager to add new worlds and peoples to their trade routes. This just feels like work we were born to do. The relationships we are building with the people here will do well to cement the future of both the gamma and Alpha quadrants."

"I think the two of you may have stumbled onto your destiny." Ezri beamed. "All thanks to a Ferengi."

"Ungh, don't remind me. I hate owing that damn little troll." She wrinkled her nose but said it with a smile.

"Oh he's not that bad."

"I suppose not. Although, you always did have odd taste in men."

"Says the woman in love with the bucket of goo." They both laughed for a long time.

Kira snorted, "You realize, after we link, he is going to know you said that."

She smiled at her old friend, grateful for the chance to talk to a relatively objective party. "Anyway, we are just about to leave for the nearest mountain range so that he can heal the last group on the planet still infected with the sickness. When we get back, I'm going to take a trade shuttle back to Bajor to figure out that end of things. I will see you then."

"What is officially ok'd for Julian to hear?"

"The overview's fine; leave out the personal details. And send him my best. Would you do me a favor and send off the communiqué I have embedded in this transmission for anyone else who was notified that I might have been hurt or killed. Glad the autopilot on the shuttle worked well, sorry that it frightened you."

Ezri grinned, "I'm just happy you are ok, that you found him. Nerys, you may still be figuring things out, but I have to tell you that you sound more centered than you have since he left. I like it."

"Thanks." She ducked her head, and tried the hide the smile that spread across her face. "I like it, too. I'll talk to you soon, Ezri."

"Bye! Say hi to the bucket of goo for me." The Trill waved and the console went blank.

It felt good to talk to her friend. Saying everything out loud always seemed to make her feel better, even when she didn't want to talk about it.


End file.
